I Know the Truth Now
by Aubretia Lycania
Summary: Summer after OotP, contains spoilers. Harry and Remus must both work through the events of the former year and find their place so long forgotten. Changes between past and present, some stream of consciousness. Is life about fate or free will? Complete.
1. It's the rain that I hear coming

I Know the Truth Now

Author

Aubretia Lycania

Rating

Rated PG-13 for some mild language and complex situations, underlying thoughts of suicide, and all that. I you've read A Prayer for Owen Meany (and understood it), and you happen to be twelve, by all means, proceed.

Warning

Please do no read this fic if you haven't read OotP—not only will it not make sense if you haven't, but it will also spoil the book for you, which is a shame because it's one of Rowling's best. Also a bit slashy (Remus/Harry); I never intended it to be, but it's my favorite pairing and I tend to sneak it in subconsciously. If that bothers you, please don't read my fic and flame me on it. I'd rather have constructive criticism on my writing, not immature complaints about the subject matter. If ya don't like it, don't read it.

Disclaimer

I don't own any of these characters and situations, and if I did, I wouldn't be homeless. As a writer, I'd be pretty ticked off if someone stole my characters and made money off them. I'm just a fan. Besides, if Remus Lupin were mine, he'd be shackled up in a basement somewhere, waiting for me to snog and shag him. 

The song is "Everybody's Fool" by Evanescence, and I don't own it either. The chapter titles are from "Innocente" by Delerium—which also isn't mine.

On Wolves

Most fanfiction writers who favor Remus Lupin include mumbo-jumbo about packs and wolves without really explaining it to the rest of us. This is rather rude as not everyone in the world is a biologist who studies the movements of such noble creatures, or reads the works of such biologists. I want everyone who reads my fanfic to have a bit of a background on wolves, so here are some defining terms. If you've studied wolves, go on to Part One and wait for us there. 

Alpha: Most people have heard of the alpha, a term given loosely to any dominating figure in a group structure. In a pack, there is commonly an Alpha Male and an Alpha Female. The alpha pairing will often be the only one in a pack allowed to have children, and if other pups join the pack or another female has a litter, these pups will either be killed or adopted by the alphas. Former Alpha pairings, those grown too old t continue their duties, and not those driven out by lower wolves, are often as elders and held in high esteem. Alpha pups are the treasure of a pack and guarded with the lives of all the wolves as a whole.

Beta: Groups of wolves directly under the one Alpha pair, often several single males or one or two Beta pairings, called the Beta Male and Beta Female. Sometimes the Beta female will be allowed a litter, if the litter to the Alpha is small. These wolves, as a general rule, defend the Alphas and also look after the wolves under them, but can sometimes be overly-ambitious for the Alphas' role or pups, if they cannot have any of their own.

Omega: The lowest group of wolves, this group is often bullied and given the smallest share of food. They are almost always without mates and litters, and suffer abuse from the Betas, and strive to move upwards. Often old and infirm wolves or those driven from other packs are Omegas.   

Part One

Never was and never will be

_You don't know how you've betrayed me_

_And somehow you've got everybody fooled…_

_Without the mask,_

_Where will you hide?_

_Can't find yourself,_

Lost in your lie… 

            The echoing of several boys' footsteps only slightly disturbed the huge, empty entry hall. Hogwarts, during the day, was normally a massive bubble of noise and activity, a sea of black robes as students swarmed to and fro between classes, filled with excited laughter and the babble of talk. But now, on a spring's blissful and cold midnight, it lay in a still silence—all except for the slight shade that moved along a wall. An occasional trainer peeked out in the moonlight, but otherwise, not even the sharpest eye could discern the three law-breakers that now made their way down the grand marble stairs. Across the moon-dappled hall and to the front door the ephemeral shadow passed, and out onto the gray-green lawns.

            Just before a towering and oddly shaped willow tree, three figures appeared. There stood a group of boys in trainers and robes, two tall, and one short. The tall boys could have been brothers. One had black hair as untidy as if he'd just dismounted a particularly rowdy broomstick, cheery hazel eyes behind glasses, and a long nose; the other had pale eyes and dark hair that fell in them in a becoming, handsome fashion, who grinned constantly in a rather rakish way. The shortest of them, however, did not smile or look the remotest bit cheery—he shifted from one foot to the other, mousy brown hair tousled and his nose pointed like a rodent's. He wrung his hands, obviously afraid to be out so late and breaking rules. 

            "Maybe—maybe this isn't too safe… Maybe I should go back, he'll probably bite me…" pointy-nose, also called Peter Pettigrew, asked in a timid voice.

            The bright-eyed boy with glasses smiled wider, and folded up the silvery cloak that had hidden them all the way down from their dormitory. "What, and miss out on adventure, Peter? Never knew you to be so strict on our safety—that's Moony's job. And he's in there, we've got to try this and keep him company, haven't we?" James asked, which was the boy's name.

            A delighted grin flashed upon his handsome friend's face, named Sirius Black. "Relax. This'll be fun, mate." And in an inkling, Sirius had transformed into an immense, bear-like black dog, tossing a shaggy head towards the branches of the tree, swaying just out of reach of him—which was a good thing, as the branches would most likely tear him to bits if he got too near.

            Still grinning, James followed, changing suddenly into a magnificent stag with dancing eyes. His antlers, still young, were nevertheless impressive, his coat shinning white, gold, and tawny brown under the lucid full moon light. Sighing, Peter followed suit. Unless one looked closely, they would not have seen the small gray rat that replaced him. His nose twitched, and his small form appeared vulnerable and small, even frightened, next to his enormous companions. 

            Knowing his role, however, the tiny rat-Peter darted about the ground towards the trunk of the willow. As soon as he neared, the branches began to sway, seeking him in the tall grass; rather bravely (he was, after all, still a Gryffindor), he tossed himself around them and scrambled up a troublesome root, pressing a knot in the trunk. The tree froze in action, and Sirius and James stepped intrepidly forward, towards a hole that had materialized. Thank goodness for Peter—without him, the Whomping Willow would be living up to its name. Without him, they would be lost.

Part Two 

I can't believe I'm here again. Yes, the Dursleys treat me horribly. In fact, they give no evidence that I even exist half the time. I've been boxed around the ears perhaps one too many times for asking questions or turning the occasional teacher's wig blue, and I'll never forgive my Uncle Vernon for the horrible cupboard I spent my childhood in. But I can say one thing about Privet Drive—I never really expect my Godfather to come walking around the corner to Wisteria Walk, or to stroll down the way towards me with his barking laugh. 

            But twelve Grimmauld Place is entirely different. In this vast and gloomy house, with its many silent rooms and vast shadows, and of course my last memories of it including, to a great extent, my Godfather, I can't help by wallow in misery. I can't help but hear his laugh in the still echoes of the cluttered attic, his face in the many dusty and hidden photo albums. I can't help but expect to see him come striding confidently up the stairs from the kitchen, or see him rush up to yell at the screaming portrait of his foul, pureblood mother. Privately, I think I actually _want _to see his ghost in every corner, every footstep I hear, every elongated shadow coming near me. Sometimes I won't look up, just to hold onto that thin illusion. What I usually find out is probably the worst possible thing, and the best. It's never my Godfather coming near me—it's never Sirius; it's almost always Remus Lupin. 

            I'm being incredibly selfish. He's lost as much as I have, if not more. He's a poor, simple man, more shabby than I am in my cousin's old clothes and my untidy hair that badly needs a cut. He's a werewolf, meaning that the entire wizarding community treats him like an animal in a cage. I've experienced this, being a Parselmouth and cursed myself. I should have more compassion for him. It should have been me that walked up and talked to him, instead of shunning Lupin at his every approach during my first few days here. My parents, Sirius, and Peter, had been his closest friends, his family, his… well, in some part of his mind, a _pack_. And he's lost every one of them.

            All except me.

            It occurs to me that there is a good reason for my avoiding Remus Lupin during the day. At night he's the only person I even talk to—perhaps some piece of me is afraid of the dark, the scurries in the walls, the shadows and the cries… my cries, during nightmare. It's not as though I don't like the man—as a matter of fact, I'm rather fond of him. He's my favorite teacher of my favorite subject—Defense Against the Dark Arts—and he never hesitates to teach me, even when no longer employed at Hogwarts. Lupin is one of the few adults truly responsible for me, and that I trust. But talking to him about Sirius would be admitting to a fact that I want to stick a knife into and destroy, bury in the back of my brain and let suffocate there—that my Godfather is really dead. That I'm alone.

            I still deal with a dilemma now that I've been facing since it happened, down in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries, in front of the veiled archway. I want to be with people when alone; I want to be alone when with people. But as it's a lot easier to be alone and find people than to be with people and try to slip away from them (especially with Hermione following me about), I've hidden myself in the attic. All the old albums, the keepsakes, the Hogwarts letters and awards, that Mrs. Black had hidden when she'd disowned Sirius, have been stuffed in a far corner and neatly packaged away, where they can't be seen. I remain, day by day, cleaning the attic of doxies and the occasional Red Cap (I don't want to know why they're up here, either), and finding these odd treasures of Sirius. 

            One day I'd managed to avoid Lupin completely, and had discovered an old trunk that needed cleaning, full of things Kreacher had saved from last Summer's drawing room purge. At the bottom were several photographs, and I spread them around myself on a circular, moth-eaten rug. A woman who looked suspiciously like Tonks stared up at me—most likely her mother, Andromeda, and photos of a little girl who must have been Nymphadora Tonks herself. Joining them—my heart flipped—were pictures of a young Sirius, handsome, his hair still short and dark, falling into his pale eyes, a rakish smile on his face. 

            _Crack_—the sound of a door slamming downstairs startled me and I kicked out, my foot colliding with the trunk and sent it toppling over on a side. A small silver music box fell out, it's lid coming open, filling the room with a soft, lilting music. Before I could react, my eyelids grew immensely heavy, and I slipped down to the rug, curled up, surrounded by black and white memories, in a deathly sleep.

            I was stirred awake by a very anxious-looking Lupin, when the light outside had grown dim through the attic's single window. I looked up at him blearily, for once thankful that it had been him to find me and not someone else. His eyes flickered around me at the rug and I sensed the troubled glare in them; I'd worried him, and a surge of guilt shot through me. I must have looked rather troublesome, curled up with that creepy music winding down, surrounded by fading pictures, fast asleep. I bit my lip as he pulled me upwards unspeaking, leading me straight out of the attic faster than seemed appropriate. When we'd gotten down the steps he turned to face me.

            "That music is cursed, Harry," he said abruptly, and I blinked. "It could kill you if you spent too much time around it. Haven't you got any sense, trying to spend all your time in this house alone, there are dangerous things here!"

            I didn't answer, wishing to myself that he'd just leave me alone, and knowing very well he wouldn't. His demeanor was stern and not a little parenting, and I briefly wondered to myself if he was trying to replace Sirius, whether for himself or me. But he's always been protective—perhaps it was my parents he'd always tried to replace, and not a Godfather he had thought for so long to be a murderer. I shrugged my shoulders a bit, resisting a sudden urge to be nearer to him, to the simple warmth of another human being, and allowed my mind to wander back up to the drafty old attic, full of dead things.

            Lupin heaved a deep sigh, unable to catch my eye. I didn't have the energy to escape him, or to hate him for holding me back a month ago, for stopping me destroying myself by going through the veil after Sirius. No one has ever described to me plainly what that ancient doorway is, but I sense it—it is the doorway of Death, behind which the souls of the departed lurk, whispering to each other and coaxing the living through to the coldness beyond like so many beckoning hands. I find myself many nights in front of that veil, reaching out, listening to those whispering voices just out of sight, just beyond my reach, and wishing I could walk through it. Oddly, it is always a very corporeal Lupin who holds me back in these dreams, in a strange and eternal replay of that night, always the one to restrain me and bring me back from the brink of my demise—and salvation.

            And I cannot hate him.

            His eyes searched me and pierced into my skin, into my mind, and I was reminded vividly of Snape's Legilimency, the ability to mind read, though Lupin's gaze was softer, gentler. He seemed to sense my thoughts, and began to pull me further away from the attic stair, down a hall and into a door I have entered quite often lately—his own. The grate was empty and cold, but a flick of his wand remedied that problem. He pushed me down onto a chair on the hearth, which creaked a bit in protest, then sat down himself, just across from me. I gathered by now that he was tired of my shunting behavior and felt a bit startled by his terseness; for the first time since being in the attic, I met his eyes, more out of surprise than anything.

Lupin leaned forward and supported his elbows on his knees, considering me for a moment. He did this a lot; still does, in fact. I couldn't help but blush slightly under his stare, but he held my gaze almost effortlessly. 

"It's not wise to live death," he finally said, as abruptly as he'd said the last. I stared for a moment, blinking in slight confusion, eliciting a small smile from him. "Dumbledore said that to me fifteen years ago." He began rolling up his robe sleeves, then started on the threadbare cuffs beneath, revealing his forearm. When it turned over, I couldn't help but gasp. Vertical scars extended from the fleshy inner elbow down, near to his wrist, where they were met with horizontal lines. What freshness they once possessed had faded with the long passage of time and age, to a frightening white that sent shivers up and down my spine. Lupin noticed my reaction but did not rush to hide the marks.

"I had boxes of pictures, too. And not just black and white, impersonal pictures—mine were color, they were recent, they had me in them. I stared down and saw myself in the presence of people who were doomed to death and murder, to prison and exile, with myself, forever unchanging, right beside them. It is an eerie feeling—you know what I mean by it—to see a constant reminder of life that cannot be brought back." His face hardened a bit, looking coldly at the scars. "I tried to kill myself. I heard from Alastor Moody, that night, what had happened. I got to your parents' house after you'd been taken, in Godric's Hollow. I saw—well, you know what I saw, and I went after Sirius—" I flinched slightly at the sound of the name, and he continued with a sad expression. "But there was no sign of him. His smell was everywhere, I could have sought him out before he found Peter, could have stopped him and found out the truth, but I was… unfocused. A few days—I don't even know if it was a few days, even now—later, I picked up the _Daily Prophet_, and there he was, laughing up at me. 

"I thought he was a murderer, worse off than dead, and that Peter was dead. In a few days they were all gone. The only one left… was you. And I couldn't get you. I couldn't see you, nothing, except know you were alive. And now I find myself back there again, back alone with you. We're the ones who were left behind."

I did not leave his gaze; instead, I delved into him, into eyes normally so controlled, so disconnected, so benign and detached. All a mask. I looked closer, and felt a sudden swell of envy. What was it _like_, to run without cessation, to run until one's lungs burned for oxygen and forced the body stricken to the ground with exhaustion, to fun without _feeling_? Even if it was just for one night. I'd sell my soul to give up my humanity until dawn, to feel him beside me, to run and run until all is behind me and there is no more pain. Lupin and I have something deep in common—we both have monsters that well up inside us, shine through our eyes, change our vision, our hearing, our voices, our touch and smell, our very lives; monsters who haunt our dreams, whisper in our ears, hide in the back of our minds and threaten to get out. The difference—Lupin can set his free once a month; I must suppress mine every moment of every day.

But Lupin has an uncanny talent for reading my mind, even when he hasn't locked me in the Drawing Room with him for Occlumency lessons. I know he enjoys them and I don't complain; just between us, I enjoy them more than he does. The continual stares and idiotic attempts to "talk" among the other occupants of Grimmauld Place have plagued me continually. Very seldom do Lupin and I have to "talk"—he knows what I'm thinking before I can ever open my mouth. And that's just what I gather he did; though, curiously (or it was at the time), he did not address my hidden wishes. 

"I know what you're looking for up there, Harry," he said, still watching me with that close, penetrating stare. At these times, I can always see the wolf in him, emanating keen intelligence. It's as though he can _smell_ my thoughts, and not just see them. I blinked, unable to maintain his gaze, and looked into the fire wordlessly. He continued. "And you won't find it. That night I brought you back here, you were afraid to come in the door, because as long as you remained outside you could continue to pretend Sirius was behind it. You hide in the attic in order to fool yourself into believing he is safely below, and we both know he's not. I've had to force myself not to do the same. That attic isn't good for you—you need people, Harry, you're becoming isolated and—" a flicker of deep concern crossed his eyes, and I knew the next words caused him pain, "—and strange."

Oh, he saw what I had been thinking and it frightened him to entertain it himself. Perhaps a bit too curious for my own good, I turned my eyes to him. He looked unnerved by my sudden bravado—I'd been avoiding his eye studiously for days—but hid his surprise with remarkable speed.

"Why d'you think I'm strange, Professor?" I asked, knowing full well what the answer was, but daring him to answer anyway.

A flicker—he almost scowled but stopped himself—and held my gaze almost regally. I've been reading his books on werewolves, preparing for N.E.W.T. Defense Against the Dark Arts, and understand all too well how he's come to think of me—how he always thought of me. It never made full sense before, why he has always been quite so protective, and so loyal. I was naïve to think it was out of simple devotion to long-dead school friends, or some figment of responsibility for the Order. It is the werewolf's inherent instinct to possess, or be apart of, a pack. Lupin was abandoned by his maker (the werewolf who bit him), was misunderstood by his parents, has been shunned by most wizarding society, is banned from having or adopting children, and is one of a dying breed; Aurors have systematically killed all Dark Creatures having dealings with Lord Voldemort, and a good many of them did. So whom did the wolf think were his pack?

Us. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs (my father), and, of course, my father's "mate"—his wife and my mother, Lily. I suspect Dad as the Alpha male, from what I've heard and seen of him, Mum as the Alpha female (she certainly had it in her), Lupin and Sirius as Betas (Sirius coming up close to my father, in a sort of second-in-command position, you could say), and Pettigrew the fast Omega. And me? I'm the only pup born of the back, the first, and from the looks of it, the last. I'm as much Lupin's son as I was my parents' and Sirius's. And Pettigrew's. It is not a particularly comforting thought, knowing how he betrayed my parents—and the pack. That need to run heedless through clawing trees into moonlit night intensified painfully as these thoughts came to me again, and I knew Lupin saw it. 

Now he is the Alpha and I the Beta, he the teacher and I the student, he the parent and I the child. Yet again, he enjoys it. That's where our eye contact comes in—I'll never tell him, but my respect for him has become limitless, almost fearful awe after I read that book. And yes, I want to hate him for stopping my destroying myself—on more than one occasion now, let's just say—but I sense that hate comes in the package, part of having a mentor. Sirius was a parent, but never a mentor; he shrank from pointing out my faults because, so often, they were actually my father's faults: my pride, my temper, my anger, all James Potter's hubris along with much else. But Sirius's death and a week of Occlumency later had already rendered me a cold, quiet, and perhaps overly-passive creature, only rising to temper when Snape stopped in to insult Lupin and Sirius's memory—I believe a week of dish duty ensued after I threw a plate at the back of Snape's slimy head. He deserved it.

Lupin leaned forward in his chair and drew my gaze nearer, delving into me with frightening ease; I may be a reasonably good Occlumens by now, but apart from lessons I never fight him. Perhaps I haven't the energy to do it. His power to see into me runs deeper than simple Legilimency, and there are silent secrets in me I think I want him to know. Like the prophecy. I want to pour all that heaviness into him and share the weight, lean against him and take part of his burdens so that we are no longer alone under our misery. His eyes are golden brown in the firelight, flecked with silver as though flickers off moonlit waters; they're distinctly creepy, as I've heard be commented about my own eyes. We are a rather fair match for one another.

Finally he squinted, latching onto my observations, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, however sad his face was.

"You've been avoiding me. I've grown used to your avoiding the rest of the household, but it's not good for you to be alone so much. If you don't want to talk to Ron and Hermione, if you think they don't understand, you could at least come up here and keep me company." He made a sweeping motion around the room, which encompasses many of the books I've buried myself in, and the small, delapidated couch I've fallen asleep on perhaps one too many times. His mouth twitched again. "Afterall, I'm not going to bite you."

Now looking at him became unbearable; too late, I tried to turn my face away, and felt firm fingers on my chin bringing me back and, even stronger, a stern gaze upon me that burned its intensity. Unable to resist, I met it dutifully.

"But that's the problem, isn't it?" His voice was calm and without accusation… comforting, caressing, the grip his hand relaxing as his eyes held me there with that effortless ease that so infuriates me.

"I want to be what you are!" I burst out—my voice sounded oddly pleading, even to my own ears, and not a little choked. "Tell me what it's like—to be able to escape—to forget—" I was slightly out of breath, as though saying these things, after so long holding them in, had taken every drop of energy out of me. Lupin didn't flinch once at my words, though his eyes had become strained. He answered at first by reaching up, stroking my left cheek softly and sympathetically—so soft I almost couldn't feel it. It's his version of hushing me I've learned, like a wolf that nuzzles its whimpering pups when danger is nearby. Looking back, I remember the days of our professional relationship and nearly laugh. We pretended to hide so much from each other, when speaking the truth just a little earlier could have saved us both from this—us all, perhaps. Had he told me about their escapades and his werewolfry, might I have recognized my best friend's rat as Pettigrew when the sneakoscope went off again? Sent him packing, off to Azkaban, cleared my Godfather's name, saved the wizarding community and his life from Voldemort's return?

Always do our choices shape the world.

Perfect by nature 

_Icons of self-indulgence_

_Just what we all need—_

_More lies about a world that_

_Never was and never will be,_

_Have you no shame, don't you see me?_

_You know you've got everybody fooled…_

"They think I'm their savior," I whispered when he was silent. I used "they" without flippancy—I honestly have never believed Lupin to see me in such light, and I'm glad for it. It may be because he took care of me as a very small child, or perhaps because he took the time to get to know me, but whatever the reason, that prophecy seems to not change his outlook on me in the slightest. But savior or not, the scar on my forehead forever marks me the property of another. The connection between myself and the Dark Lord, intimate and frightening, sets me apart permanently from my peers, my friends, and all the Order of the Phoenix… all, except Lupin. He knows what it is to be cursed, to be owned by a monster, to be chained to an endless destiny of rushing night and death, and too true it has proven. He's lost his entire pack—his family. I find it appropriate that I was the progeny of that pack. Whom else would have produced the child who was supposed to either murder or be murdered by the Dark Lord? The very death of all its members has been to him; the very fabric has been in defiance of his ideals.

Prongs—passionately rejecting the Dark Arts despite all his talent and power, and a blood traitor by heritage. Lily—compassionate, talented, the best witch in her year; Head Girl, and all in spite of being a muggle-born. Padfoot—born to pureblood family stuffed to the gills with Death Eaters, yet in defiance of them all joined the Order and died a hero. Moony—a werewolf, victim of countless atrocities, alone and vulnerable, and still one of Dumbledore's greatest supporters to this day. And at last Wormtail—what can be said about him that's fair? The weak link, nearly a Squib, untalented, not powerful, a rebel against the Dark Lord until finally falling into Darkness. Excepting him, I can't help but be proud of them all, my family, the world of yesterday that I wish so fervently could have raised me.

"And—and everyone else thinks I'm crazy. They're right. I can't feel anything when I'm up in that attic," I continued to pour out. "And then, the rest of the time, I feel too much, and it drives me insane. Have you ever—ever felt like—like you've got something in your chest—like something's fighting to fly right out of you?"

Lupin continued to stroke my cheek, and I knew he understood exactly what I was talking about. He had edged further forward in his chair so as to bring us closer, his eyes burning into mine, welcoming me to continue.

I swallowed, trying to ignore that very feeling in my chest as it welled up. "You… you get to escape this. Even if it's just for one night, it's one night where you don't have to be—to be—"

"Human," he finished for me, in a voice so soft it was almost dangerous. I glimpsed for the first time a sudden longing in him, and though it enthralled me, I wished I hadn't seen it at all. "Being human is exactly the reason you could destroy Voldemort, Harry. It's being human that has saved your life—the reason he couldn't possess you, the reason Sirius came after you. He loved you because you loved him first, you meant everything to him simply for acknowledging him as a human being, for needing him. I can never measure up to that. But remember something, Harry—you are always free to sever the chains of fate that bind you. Simply because they are dead doesn't mean they don't love you still. Being dead doesn't mean you're gone; only being a monster and losing your humanity does that."

I tried to pull away from him, uncomfortable, but he wouldn't allow it, expecting an answer. 

"I want to be dead too," I said meekly, squirming to avoid his gaze and failing miserably. "Why'd you stop me? You didn't have to—you could've… could've…"

"Let you go?" Lupin finished for me yet again. His eyes were flashing and frightening, a hand now firmly on my cheek to reinforce them as they burned themselves permanently into the back of my brain. "Understand, Harry, that the moment I grabbed onto you, I couldn't have let go had I wanted to—and I didn't. It may have been selfish; I know I've been selfish, about everything—I've lied to you, and told the truth only when it suited me to do so, or when I couldn't stand the look you'd give me out of sheer guilt. I've wallowed in self-pity and been angry with you if I thought you showed signs of doing the same. I'm a hypocrite, and still selfish, and I intend to hold onto you; I—I'm afraid… to be the one left behind… the last one left."

By now I was feeling oddly equalized with him, my heart aching. I won't deny that I wanted to hurt him, for keeping me helpless, laying claim to me, holding me to him—why, because I couldn't help but be fond of him? Connected to him in our shared grief? Because despite my fear of losing him I couldn't help but let myself love him, simply for letting me love him? Was he so desperate to rejoin his pack that he would willingly place himself in the deadliest position possible—the object of my affection? We would partake of poison and care for me? What fate did he think I could escape?

"What about Pettigrew?" I asked, meeting his eyes with perhaps too much bravery.

I had obviously said the right thing to wake him up. It was as though my skin had turned to fire; his hand snapped back from my face with the quickness that puts impulse to shame, a flash of primal anger renting his eyes, that I felt for certain wasn't aimed entirely at his treacherous old school friend. He looked as though he would quite like to hit me then, and I actually felt myself flinch.

Lupin stood up, towering over me, and leaned down so our faces nearly touched, and forcing me backwards noticeably. "Peter is worse than dead," he said. "He betrayed the closest trust, let us all think him something he wasn't, traded in all our lives for his own. All because—all because—"

Now it was my turn to finish for him.

"Because you and Sirius were so busy suspecting each other you didn't even see it." My voice was monotone, cold, without accusation. He was close I could hear his heart beating, and drowned in the comfort of that pulsing, savage rhythm.

"Because we were selfish!" he almost hissed. "Because we indulged ourselves in thinking we were the strongest, that ourselves alone could protect you and James and Lily! Because we wanted to suspect each other, we wanted the other out of the way!"

I couldn't resist asking, no matter how close our faces were, no matter how much he might have wanted to hit me, no matter how lascivious the thrum of his heart was, so frighteningly alive…

"W-why?"

Lupin flushed noticeably, and I knew immediately that I wouldn't learn the answer, not then. "Because… I suspected him because he had something to gain if James… died. I thought he might have tried to get that thing after James and Lily died, if Voldemort got them out of the way. And he… well, he suspected me because he and James had something I wanted more that life itself… that I still want, but it's too late now. And all the time Peter was standing there, having a good laugh at us. He was actually a perfect friend, you know, to fools like us; supportive, quiet, kept his tongue, knew what to say and do to get the right people on his side. And he destroyed us all."

He straightened apologetically and, after briefly gripping my knee, sat back down gently in his chair, eyes still on me. He's gained a few more gray hairs and I suspect myself as the reason for many of them. His face is young yet line, his eyes sparkling yet tired. We are blind and selfish walking paradoxes, he and I. Why did I never see that vivid pain and stalking wolf at thirteen? Was I so busy hating the man I believed had killed my parents that I failed to ask Lupin the right questions? Did I ever stop to think before then about how much this man had lost, that he'd lost what _I'd_ lost? Selfish.

Just will-o'-the-wisp little decisions, off the cuff, "What kind of ice cream will I have today?" kinds of decisions. I'm Harry Potter, after all. Always catch the Snitch. First-class troublemaker. My best subjects are Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm actually better than Hermione Granger in the latter—I'm the only one who's ever beaten her in a subject. Creatures and Curses, Ghosts and Goblins, leave it to me to specialize in the dead, dark, and beastly. The perfect "Kill-Voldemort" machine, right? It's what I was born for. Perfect.

It's because of me he vanished at the first. Because of me he came back. That's fate—self-fulfilling. I brought him back with my blood, the same blood that nearly destroyed him, for one pf two purposes: to kill him, or be killed. And to think there are thousands of cars driving past Grimmauld Place every day. At any time, I could walk into the street, in the path of an oncoming bus. But I won't. The prophecy told me not to. Bus—crash—chains of fate severed by a faulty traffic signal.

Lupin studied me for another moment of silence. Silence between us is an amazing thing—charged with un-uttered words, flitting shadows and knowledge—we _know_ one another. He sees himself in me, his pain in me, and I in him. We frighten one another.

"I always remember," Lupin started abruptly, and for a moment I was utterly bemused. He smiled; he knew he had my attention. "I don't just black out once the moon hits me; quite the contrary, in fact. It's as though I'm in a muggle car, driving, and suddenly someone else wants to take the wheel. I try not to let them, I'm afraid of losing control; every time, I fight it. I feel the claws ripping my skin—it's really just the fur growing, I've found out. And the wolf breaking my bones—it's normal, my bones have to break before the reform themselves and heal over again. Then the windshield, the whole view, changes. I can see through its eyes, feel the wind in my face. But the wolf—the wolf drives." He blinked, a look of shame crossing his features. "It's incredible, I won't lie to you." The longing lurched through me; I want to be there with him, make him stop regretting what he is, the things he desires. "When I'm there, I keep trying to remember, not to lose myself in it… I try to latch onto things, emotions, thoughts, that are important to me, as a human being… when I was young, it was my friends, your father and Sirius—especially when they ran with me, they were real. I became less the wolf and more myself with them. If I've nothing to hold onto the wolf takes over quicker. Thoughts… are insubstantial. My thinking becomes scattered, the concrete becomes abstract, smells are overpowering. Unless there is something real with me—them running at my side—I cannot hold onto my rationality, myself. Sometimes I don't want to, just like you. 

"But the wolf doesn't just affect me; my thoughts and feelings affect it as well. I loved my friends—it learned to love them as well. When they joined me, I was complete, the wolf could long for nothing, it relaxed and allowed me control over my own mind, even after I'd changed. We merged, I suppose you could say; I learned how to differentiate between smells, to understand and know everything around me, to know what I wanted… which proved itself dangerous as I grew older. When I was young, the pack was enough." He watched me hard, pleading with me to understand.

"But… I grew up. At twenty… I began to become violent again in my transformations. Voldemort was taking over, I ran alone, or locked myself in basements where I couldn't be found. The wolf wasn't the only one who felt lonely, even with the pack. The need to Bite became overpowering—it was always there, after all—but it wasn't so much about tasting blood anymore. I wanted to make another werewolf, and that feeling hasn't gone away. I want a protégé, progeny, a pup, whatever you want to call it, more than I can bear…" He swept some graying hair out of his eyes distractedly, self-disgust heady on him like a musk.

"I was twenty-one years old when you were born. We were all there with your dad, waiting to find out if you were a boy or a girl. James held you first of course, when the Healer came in. I thought he was going to faint… you were so small, so quiet, and James was so bloody happy and scared, I almost felt sorry for him. He let Sirius hold after a while—he'd already been appointed your Godfather. They both… wanted… to teach you Quidditch." He smiled momentarily, swallowing something in his throat, before lapsing back into a self-hating scowl.

"Then I held you, and I knew from that moment on that I wanted you, more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted you, my best friend's son—and not simply because I wanted my own son. I wanted you. It was so horrible, the thoughts I had. I babysat you sometimes." Lupin's eyes closed as though he was fighting back tears—or a scream. "I'd hold you late into the night, scared to death of that you'd never live to realize how much we all—how much _I_—loved you. I think you did, though. And there were always my thoughts to be frightened of; irrational, yes, but not entirely the wolf's."

He looked up at me, and I was startled by how little he reminded me of my distant and polite old school teacher. A remembrance of the day he wanted to, but didn't, grip my shoulder, flashed through my mind.

"Please—"he said, voice more hoarse than usual. "Don't hate me, Harry. You've every right to, you know—but please don't. I didn't want them to die. I never wanted you to be miserable. But I should have… should have tried harder… to…"

I sat, utterly bemused at this. He wasn't making his usual sense to me, keeping his thoughts ordered and speaking half what he means to say with his eyes alone. No, these eyes were shattered, fragmented, stream of consciousness, flitting desires and devoid of the normal aloofness that so often permeates them.

"Professor, I'm sorry, but… I don't understand. Why d'you think I should hate you? Tried to do what?" His gaze on me was unfathomable and full of regrets; I'd do anything to dive into his mind and unlock every precious and terrible memory he has trapped there, hidden away from me.

"I wanted to get custody over you, Harry—to take you away from your Aunt and Uncle, to raise you. I even went to Dumbledore with it, countless times—he never budged once—so I dropped it after about a year. I just gave up. I felt too guilty—like I'd wished your parents dead, just to get you. It was an insane idea of course… if Voldemort had his way, you'd have died too. It took me a long time to realize all that. I lived for twelve years like a dead man.

"Then, when I saw you again… it was like I'd come back to life. Being a werewolf is nothing if you have nobody, Harry, when you live your life in pain. Can you imagine the pain you'd inflict on yourself? It's what I did." He indicated the horrible scars again. "They're not the only ones I've got. There are worse ones—not from a blade. Scars from claws, and teeth. Being a werewolf doesn't stop you from feeling—just thinking."

I looked into his eyes; so sincere, so warm, and so unbearably human they were, those eyes. "And if I told you I just wanted to run with you? What would you say to that, Professor Lupin?" I asked evenly. The small wrinkles at the sides of his eyes crinkled as he allowed himself a smile.

"I'd be very tempted to bite you here and now. I'd be wondering what your blood tastes like, and wonder just how beautiful you would be as a werewolf. You're young, and bright. You would be beautiful. But as I told you, I've always been selfish when it comes to you."

God, how I wanted to hate him at that moment! How badly I wanted to howl my misery and feel biting wind on me, drown in the cold surface of the moon and roam free from everything, all at that instant. I still long for it, feel it drip into my veins and tug pleadingly at my stomach, at my soul. I would beg him to have what he has. I _want _to hurt myself. Hurt for all that my existence has taken from others. Then I want to run, then I want to die, fall into deep waters and never feel again. I want to drift into blackness until I fall into my Godfather's arms. I want to stay there for all eternity, holding onto him so that I never lose him again, so that he can never leave me behind and alone. Ever.

And, in that moment, aching for what I could never be, and the death Lupin would never let me have, I could not hate him. It was as though the world was slipping away and, incredibly, I did not want to leave it. I clung to him instead, for dear life and hanging on the edge of the very abyss I so hungered for, for in that moment of uncertainty, I felt helpless and ultimately vulnerable. What had Lupin said? Afraid to be the last one left. So, I'll stay for you, Professor Lupin. I won't be selfish. And I'll even tell you the truth.

I reached out and covered his hand with my own, commanding my eyes to convey to him a truth I haven't words for. Words I can't remember ever hearing, that I've never said. His eyes leapt with surprise and even a little sorrow.

"What it's like to run, Professor Lupin?" I asked quietly, not expecting him to answer. The ghost of a smile alighted on his features. I can play pretend, in my fairytale, that I am there with him; and he can pretend I'm a child still, content in his arms, and share with someone what it is to be a werewolf and not be ashamed. 

I haven't the energy to hate you, Professor Lupin. But I think I have enough to love you.      


	2. Not a stranger or a ghost

Author's Note 

            I'd like to thank everybody most wonderfully for the reviews, especially Amity, your feedback was as graceful as it was helpful. Thank you! And just to keep you all posted, this story will be four chapters, each encompassing two parts, past and present. And yes, Amity, I am nothing if not indulgent, I have a Harry-goes-werewolf story in the works. Should be interesting. Thanks again, and I will be posting regularly, so no one gets impatient—I hate it when writers trail their reader's on for years at a time.

On Wolves Again 

            Crucial to pack society is, not only the hierarchy system, but also the language of truth—this seen in the eyes. All wolves—and most canines—follow this system of communication, challenge, and submission. The language of the eyes determines who belongs to what caste, who the dominant one and who the submissive, the better hunter, who eats the most, whom one will take as a mate. In a small scuffle or disagreement, such as over a kill, the challenge is met in the eyes: the stronger member will maintain the gaze, while the weaker will finally look away in defeat. In this, deaths are avoided. The Alpha Male ultimately can be held in no one's gaze aside from his mate's, determining him the strongest. It is a language we as humans think we have forgotten, but use every day.  

Part Three 

_It never was and never will be,_

_You don't know how you've betrayed me_

_And somehow you've got everybody fooled…_

            Genial firelight flickered off the colored glass of wine bottles and danced warmly through honey-tinted butterbeer, to look as amber, perhaps concealing a firefly trapped in suspended flight within. The babble of talk was a low, sweet drone that sang like lullaby, but even this did not seem to encourage a widely alert one-year-old to sleep. Little Harry Potter instead sat rather contended on his father's shoulder, glancing around avidly at the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Many of them couldn't help but continually turn and wave at him through the pre-meeting bustle and whispering; Dumbledore's eyes kept twinkling, and even Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody spared the toddler a fond smile. Lily Potter, however, did not appear particularly pleased with her husband's liberalness. She hovered around his right shoulder, as though the hand that supported her son would suddenly turn transparent and the child would topple through it. Sirius, standing on James's left, laughed at her in between deep gulps of wine and making funny faces at Harry, along with the occasional suspicious glance over his shoulder.

            Remus Lupin felt Sirius's eyes rather heavily on him, though they weren't entirely the reason for his uncomfortable state at the moment. His mind had been lapsing into stages of burning guilt and shame all night, and he had wondered more that once that evening if Dumbledore could see it. And he, like Lily, was lingering nervously near to Harry, acting as a backup should Lily miss. One never knew with precocious one-year-olds. After a while of this, Harry began looking around and checking for Remus's position each time it changed, searching with anxious green eyes. The boy seemed afraid to lose sight of him, and each time he received a reassuring smile from his "rediscovered" Uncle Moony, he grinned widely. That was just Uncle Moony, forever on unsure footing, everyplace at once, chaotic and hard to pinpoint; his only stability being that, when found by Harry, he was always looking right back, showing that his eyes had never left him.

            Remus beamed as Harry swung his head around once again, searching for him in the sea of bodies. An amusing game—he found himself ducking behind Dedalus Diggle (hard to do, as he was quite a small man), before returning to his place beside Lily, who was attempting unsuccessfully to coax James into lowering her son. The Order was far too large to sit at a table; instead, the one long board down in the Hogwarts basement was reserved for the precious liquor bottles and peppermint humbugs, while most of the members stood (save a few who were older, and those injured from a recent brush with Death Eaters), and Dumbledore spoke from atop a high stool at the front, emphasizing his great height. Peter Pettigrew, standing in front of James and Lily, looked back at Sirius and Remus, when the former had reached up to tickle Harry just as the later reached up to steady him.

            "Padfoot, Moony, stop playing around!" Peter hissed while James laughed. "Or you'll make him fall!"

            Harry threw a distinct scowl at Peter, and said, simply, "Buh!"

            Lily, however, looked accusingly at Remus and Sirius, and opened her mouth to reprimand them—

            "Give it a rest, Evans," James teased gently, using his old address for her from their school days and calming the situation. "He's fine—gotta get used to the altitude for flying, don't you, Harry?" He looked up at his son, hazel eyes proud and bright. "Mummy and Uncle Moony worry too much, don't they?"

            "We do not!" was Lily and Remus's unanimous, indignant reply, even as they continued to hover around James's shoulder edgily. James chuckled in a serene way at this, Peter gave a shrill, nervous little laugh to match him, and Sirius snorted audibly into his wine, still eyeing Remus with some uncertainty.

            "Alright, your attention please!" boomed Dumbledore's voice from high above the spindly-legged stool (they suspected he'd borrowed it from Ollivander.) "Everyone! Our young members included." He winked, inclining a head to both a cheerily waving Harry and a sleepy-eyed Neville Longbottom, several yards away in his mother Alice's arms; several members of the Order found it difficult to find trustworthy babysitters in such dark times, and the toddlers, too young to really understand what was happening, were allowed to accompany their parents to meetings, while older children were entertained by house elves in the kitchens. A collective laugh went around the crowd at this comment. It was a curious thing to see the Order members laughing; they'd just lost the Prewett and the Bones families, and little Susan Bones, who had once played with Harry and Neville, was off living with her aunt Amelia. Only the glow of young life still in their midst seemed to spur the resistors onward. Dumbledore's face sobered, as though sensing this.

            "We have suffered a terrible loss. They were friends and allies, brave fighters and strong minds. The sacrifices that have been made must not go wasted, and we must fight on. Lord Voldemort is gaining power and support by the second, another pack of werewolves have fallen to him—we must thank our Remus Lupin for this information. And now, James, Lily, forward if you please—tell us what you found in your reconnaissance last week in Kent. A close call, as I've heard, wasn't it?"

            James reluctantly slid Harry off his shoulder and, after hugging him tightly for a small moment, handed the little boy gingerly to Sirius. 

            "Uncle Pah-foo!" exclaimedHarry happily, making Sirius grin with almost indecent enthusiasm.

            "There you go, Harry, stay with your Uncle Padfoot," soothed James, before he and Lily strode up to Dumbledore from their position in the back of the room. 

            "Don't worry, Prongs, I got him," said Sirius, pulling Harry more securely into his embrace, before looking up at Remus with distinguished, triumphant smugness. Remus glanced away quickly, unable to hide that dangerous fire in his eyes; Peter, all the while, listened actively to James's recount of his and Lily's most recent close-shave with Voldemort's dementors—all three, James, Lily, and Peter—blissfully oblivious. Subconsciously, Remus edged nearer with an almost too-casual gait, making Sirius snigger.

            "How's it going, Moony?" he asked in a falsely pleasant undertone.

            "Oh, rather well… full moon's a far way off… I found a nice job at a bookstore in Nottingham, you know," was Remus's light reply, mouth twitching as Harry turned to face him.

            "Uncle Mooie!" he exclaimed, holding out his arms to be held. Sirius, however, now somewhat put out, held on tighter, eyeing Remus.

            "No, no, pup. Daddy told you to stay with Uncle Padfoot," he whispered. "Shush now, alright?"

            Remus's eyes narrowed and he moved closer to Harry protectively. "Maybe he'd feel better if I stood right here," he muttered, as nonchalantly as one can with teeth gritted.

            "And maybe you should just go keep Wormtail company, huh Moony?" Sirius suggested a bit aggressively, his tone dangerous as their eyes met in a wake of fearsome electricity. Had they began circling, the casual observer might not have been surprised.

            "Oh, I don't think so," was Remus's calm, barely breathed reply. Their faces had grown closer, eyes never parting once, waiting for the other to break contact. Just a game—first to look away lost.

            Lost what?

            Harry, now growing uncomfortable under the tightness with which Sirius held him, began to squirm, then to whimper. He was a rather quiet child, if energetic, and cried little; still, the feeling of Uncles Padfoot and Moony at one another's proverbial throats with teeth bared was not a comforting one.

            "Da-da…" Harry protested weakly, knowing that Daddy was the only one capable of stopping Uncle Padfoot and Uncle Moony from fighting, whose presence, strong and commanding and safe, could make everything right again. He smelled of air and light and sky, the grass he had no trouble tumbling in while playing with Harry, the lemon tea that Mama made in the kitchen that he would sip calmly, reading things in the paper that outraged those who spoke of them. Fresh dirt from Mama's flower beds full of lilies, flowers put on graves but full of life when at home; mud on wet days and the droplets of rain that he stepped intrepidly, even happily through, unbent by any storm to return with twinkling, brilliant eyes. Daddy could make the world stop spinning if it revolved too fast.

            Remus broke eye contact reluctantly at Harry's low plead for help. "Sirius, you big—ease up, you're holding him too tight!" he hissed, exasperated, at once stopping the moment.

            "Oh—sorry, pup!" muttered Sirius, clearly ashamed of himself and loosening his grip a bit. Remus's gaze on him was hot, though he kept his voice steady and aloof.

            "You could have hurt him! Lily would have had our heads, not to mention what I would do to you—"

            "S-Sirius… R-Remus… give it a rest, before Dumbledore comes back here…" came Peter's voice unexpectedly, appearing at their elbows and glancing nervously at an again-scowling Harry.

            "Buh!" the toddler once more threw in his direction with distaste. "Buh, buh, buh!" And with that final declaration, Harry buried his face in his godfather's shoulder, not to reappear again. Peter shifted nervously, but went unnoticed by Sirius and Remus, the former stroking the little boy's back soothingly, throwing the occasional nasty glance at his friend, the latter glaring at him with something akin to strong jealousy, tinted by an undistinguishable emotion, a haze behind his eyes that wasn't entirely human.

            Perhaps years of running together had a hand in both thinking, at the exact same moment in time, "Traitor."

            Peter edged away from the little boy and his fellow Marauders, Adam's apple bobbing with a deep gulp at bitter bile in his throat, returning to quietly listen Dumbledore's shrewd ideas and greet James coming back with a smile. 

Part Four 

            I run along a darkened stone corridor, my hand reaching out for the handle of a door—I am past it, my heart yearning for something beyond. A circular room lit by blue candles; whispering voices beckon me irresistibly through the right passageway. Leaping down stone tiers—and there it is, the veil moving as though tickled by a wan breeze in its rounded archway. I almost see a translucent hand pass through its opening and crook a single finger, a whisper a little louder than all the others, calling to me.

            "Awww… did you _love _him, Baby Potter?" cackles Bellatrix Lestrange's voice from somewhere in the cold room—so cold so vast, so dark—I'm drowning, and an icy grip fastens itself around my heart.

            "Yes… I do."

            The Death Eaters' silvery laughter, a high-pitched, terrified scream amid a sea of sickening green light, gray eyes reflecting the tranquil twilight sky, a tombstone and a man breathing raggedly against the skin of my neck… The archway with the black veil and whispering voices, my heart pounding, finally, this time I'll go through it!

`           And the encircling embrace of Lupin's arms around my chest, warm and vivid and solid and real, holding me gently and firmly away from the veil.

            These are the thoughts that haunt me now… evidence that Lord Voldemort's mind has become a part of mine, no matter how great or slight… For these are not his thoughts anymore. They are mine. My memories, my obsessions… and my fantasies. Tearing through savage forests in the pre-dawn hours, answering the boiling electricity of my blood, born or placed there by my life, I do not know—perhaps a mixture of both. Damp leaves and diamond bright sky, sharp with night breezes and crisp with the smells of nocturnal creatures. A coyote's offal, rotting flowers, the half-eaten corpse of a dead elk, gracefully sprawled, beautiful and regal even in death. These are my elders, the heritage of my blood, calling to me and spurring me to follow them, the beckoning hands towards rushing death I try to follow. The shade of the Grim, his throat torn out by an unknown predator and left to be eaten by maggots. Death lilies, rotting before the early frost freezes them in eternity on the edge of stagnant water. My thoughts, and mine alone.

            I awoke with a start and stared around, greeted by a dimply-lit room, whose shadowed details had become blurred by my lack of glasses. Gazing left, I found both them and my copy of _Defensive Magic and Its Uses Against the Dark Arts, Vol. III_. The low light emanated from dying embers in the grate nearby, and I fast realized I was laying out on the old couch in Lupin's room, having most certainly fallen asleep reading with him. His old paperback _Macbeth _lay on a low table between myself and his chair, where he'd left it, covered me with a quilt, and gone to bed some hours ago—given the state of the fire—and the steady sounds of his deep breathing reached me, comforting my mind after another of my nightmares. Weeks of Occlumency have assured me that my dreams reflect only my own thoughts, and not the Dark Lord's. Aside from the pain in my scar and the occasional brief flash of a muggle's death, my mind is an empty room for me to occupy—and for Lupin to see. 

            I leaned into the deepest corner of the couch cushions, seeking to be safely surrounded on all sides, protected from the very thoughts than continued to swim around my brain—I want to open up my skull and scratch at it with long, stained claws, beat at the matter there and pour the thoughts out in bright splashes of blood—remembrances of death and violence and loud, terrible screams. Lupin stirred restlessly on the bed, as though disturbed by my miserable musings and the traces of nightmare seeping back into me. I wondered briefly if he too was suffering my night terror then—if the same black, horse-like spirit who abducts me each time sleep overtakes my body frequents him as well—and swallowed a childish urge to wake him up and tell him "I had a bad dream," just as a frightened four-year-old would.

            And an even more childish urge, I found, replaced the last—crawl under the covers and hold tightly onto him, afraid the hands behind the veil would reach out and claim Lupin instead of me. No more. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to leave the warm safety of the room, the sound of his steady breathing, the assurance of his heart pounding in a soft, entrancing rhythm that invited me to fall into it heedlessly. I had to be there. Just had to see the veil, nothing else. Just stand before it. I didn't even bother to put on my glasses; I could find that veil at four in the morning with eyes closed.

            The uncarpeted portion of the floor greeted me coldly and inhospitably, as though the biting chill in the very wood of Lupin's room chided me to get back to bed and stop acting foolish. I ignored it. An ember crackled loudly, a warning voice to get under the covers before it got angry with me and I received a time-out. But I persevered, my hand at last reaching the knob—

            "And where precisely do you think you're going at two in the morning, Harry James?" issued a stern voice from my right. Lupin sat rather serenely on the edge of his bed, obviously savoring having caught me in the act and using the "you're-in-big-trouble" voice I often recognized in Mrs. Weasley when addressing the twins. I froze instinctually, hand falling to my side. "Come here," Lupin continued, patting the space beside him. I walked toward the bed, defeated, and sank down, hands in my lap like a child. "You were talking in your sleep," he said gently, a sad look catching in his face, where the premature lines found themselves deeper grooved in shadow, cast from the dim embers' glow. "Thrashing about—like you were running from something. Corridors still haunting you, Harry?"

            So he knew. I brought myself to meet that gaze and nodded slightly, not so much in affirmation as resignation.

            "What else?" He was choosing to let me tell him, rather than just smell the terror and pain and death that drenched my skin, pouring out of my thoughts and soul—though I'm sure it was painfully obvious to his olfactory, one way or another. Had he heard the screams, felt the rotting hands and smelled the raw, terrible fear in my memories during our Occlumency lessons? A thought is like a virus—it can eat steadily away at you, turn your insides to stagnant liquid and noxious vapor, consume its way hungrily into the shredded tissues of your heart and transform your muscles to a moist, shapeless slush, until there is nothing left but a sultry marsh and the virus/thoughts themselves—all this, with one key difference. Thoughts never leave you. It can be imagined that they are forgotten, pushed away and purged, but truthfully that are always there, waiting, waiting, waiting. To feed again.

            Could I tell him it is always him that stops me? Pulls me back, holds on tight, leans close to my ear and reminds me he draws breath? Reminds me that there is life on this side of the veil worth staying for? Awakens tiny candle and lantern lights long dormant within me, communicating meanings I don't yet quite understand? Could I tell him that, even as I tried to wander to the Department of Mysteries, a part of me wanted nothing more than to crawl under a blanket with him and listen to his breathing?

            "I saw Death." A simple answer for so great and complex a thing, but no words of mine could do it justice. Lupin nodded in the failing firelight, and placed a warm hand on my knee. "Professor…" My voice sounded weak and hollow even to my own ears. He's accepted the fact that I'll never be able to call him by his first name. He is unchanging, set in one position and place, Professor Lupin. "I was thinking… Dumbledore said that… since I saved Pettigrew's life—there'd be a connection between us. That one day I'd be thankful for it—but I don't want to be connected to him. Or Voldemort. Or any of them."

            I could feel Lupin's wry smile. "Like carrying Death around on a chain with you, isn't it? I know how that feels, believe me—but you were connected to Peter long before you saved his life—we both were. It's not something that can be changed, nor for you to stay awake worrying about. Trust me Harry, this is something I know a lot about. I've been waking up just like you just did for the last sixteen years."

            With swansong cracks and pops, the embers had begun to weaken, causing the light to fall fatally into near nothingness. Now Lupin had a distinct advantage, as I could no longer see his face, though I felt sure he could still see mine. 

            "What we were, Harry—how could I ever describe it to you? When we ran in the Forbidden Forest together, we could hear each other's heartbeats, and realize they moved in synch—I can remember the exact rhythm of James's breathing as he ran at our forefront, proud and strong, the patter of his hooves as they hit the earth almost soundlessly, confidently; the melody of Sirius's heart as it pounded against his ribcage, the smell of his fur as it grew cold against the night wind—the thought that I will never hear those sounds again, smell them near me when I run… and all because of Peter Pettigrew." I felt his body stiffen, the hand on my knee tighten, in a half-desperate, half-protective grip. "I want to hear him scream, Harry. I want to taste his blood and feel it heavy on my hands, know he's terrified, let him run and think he's gotten away—and then there I'll be, waiting for him." He swallowed, shaking harshly, and I received the distinct impression that these were thoughts he had never uttered aloud to anyone before—whom would he tell, aside from Sirius, whom he would never have to tell, who most likely felt and thought the exact same?

            I didn't realize there were tears on my cheeks until Lupin wiped one softly away. I leaned against him, hungry for the warmth there, seeking to ease away his thoughts and knowing I never could, just as he could do nothing to banish mine. Darkness began settling down on the room like a caressing blanket.

            I think I was awake when I felt warm lips brush lightly against mine.

            I don't know. It might have been just a dream.     

                                   


	3. It's the quiet of a storm approaching

Author's Note 

            Thank you all again for your reviews, and especially, once more, my great thanks to Amity. Your review was inspirational and stirring proof that I'm getting my point across, which is of great comfort. Sorry this chapter took longer than expected, I didn't quite remember how long it was when I wrote it down.

More On Wolves 

            Researchers, who have spent the greater part of their lives in the observance of wolves, cannot help but note their similarity to humans when it comes to social psychology. Often reports of the human "sixth sense"—as of a husband feeling his wife's pain when she is in great peril, or a mother feeling great fear should her child be kidnapped—seem similar to that between wolves and their mates and pups, a telekinetic link which may aid them in hunting. More than instinct, these senses show the innate need of both our species for others of our kind, and the great punishment exile and loneliness must truly be. Needed for survival, this telekinetic link is perhaps the greatest evidence of the soul.

Part Five 

            _Thump thump, thump thump…_

_You don't know how you've betrayed me…_

_            Whoosh!_ The subtle breezes found themselves bemused in the wake of a warm wind.

            _Thump thump, thump thump…_

            The gentle patter of light hooves cantering over damp leaves… the triumphant brush of lemon tea, fresh raindrops, grass and earth, essences that clung to the dew-spattered coat of a tawny young stag. Patches of lighter color clung to his hindquarters, where spots were still in the process of fading into adulthood. His hazel eyes reflected the brilliant, moonlit forest and healthy thirst for adventure. He used his antlers, not let large, but nevertheless impressive, to hold a whipping bough out of the way—

            Another _whoosh_—a shadow had seemed to dart nimbly out of the undergrowth, bringing with it the incredibly fiery scent of ginger, the rich aroma of thick chocolate, and even a touch of exotic violets rubbed off from another—the shadow bounded up into a patch of light, dappling its shaggy black coat in iridescent blue and sending a frightening effervescence out from his pale azure eyes.

            The shadow—a lithe, bear-like dog, was ahead now, throwing a playful glance backwards often, winning the race by a hair…

            _Thump thump, thump thump…_

_            Whoosh_—another heady breeze—of wild winter pine, sharp evergreen, and tangy wood smoke, finding gentle solace intertwined with the scent of old, battered books and the yellowed pages of well-loved texts. This breeze landed, none too gracefully, in a shower of soaked leaves feet in front of the dog—it was up in seconds, shaking fur of many soft brown shades, an eldritch wolf with discerning golden eyes—extending his body, muscles rippling, to embrace the very air and moon with a single, unearthly howl.

            _Thump thump, thump thump…_

            Like water set free from a dam the three were off once again, the stag emerging at the front, their breath converging into a single, holy union—and under the tangy, fresh, spicy scents of them, came a fourth… banana crème pie and mellow butter, touched by the slightly acrid cling of spilled ink. Nestled safely between the stag's antlers rode a tiny gray rat, ducking as the occasional branch swung down on him from above…

_            Thump… thump… thump…_

_Can't find yourself,_

_Lost in your lie…_

            "Look, Padfoot, I know he's a werewolf, but a Death Eater…"

            "Voldemort's been recruiting them like mad, Prongs!" Sirius protested, putting his coffee cup down heavily, trying to ignore the sternness in James's voice and demeanor. The loud London coffee shop was ideal for meetings such as this—meetings hurried, rushed, and frightened, surrounded by muggles blissfully unaware. Before James could open his mouth, Sirius cut in again, looking his friend earnestly in the eye. "I know it's hard to take in, but think about it—who else? It has to be one of the five of us, it's certainly not Lily or Peter; aside from Lily being Harry's mother, she's also a muggle-born, Voldemort wouldn't take her, and Peter's nearly a Squib, he's too… well, weak. And it sure as hell isn't you or me—Remus has motive, Prongs!"

            James's hazel eyes grew wide, disrupting his calm and discerning look, filling him with disruptive passion. "What motive? What do you mean?"

            Sirius took a calming breath and a deep draught of coffee; he didn't much relish his next words. "Harry. He… I think—I know—he wants Harry, James. Not for Voldemort—for himself. I've seen it. Just in his glances, the way he looks at him, when he holds him… he's jealous of you, James. Y'know he can't have children, he can't even adopt them unless they're registered Dark Creatures or something close to it. Or if he makes another werewolf… If he could get you and Lily out of the way—"

            "You would get Harry, Sirius!" James glowered fiercely. "And I don't believe the spy is Remus—I don't think it's any one of us… It sounds like a load of Snape's tosh just to get us suspicious of one another, if you ask me. Voldemort could watch my movements easily enough without a spy, it's not as though Lily and I have been hiding from him until now! We've been up against his Death Eaters twice already, and him three times—"

            "Listen to me, James!" Sirius cut in, eyes panicked. "Whether you believe me or not, I saw Remus's thoughts, I know what he wants. He can't know which one of us is the Secret Keeper." A sudden, brilliant idea came to him then like lightning. "We've got to switch! Use Peter instead of me, that way I can help you protect Harry while he goes into hiding! No one would suspect! I'd be your decoy, Voldemort would think it was me and Peter would be miles away, even if I did get caught!"

            James furrowed his brow, a weight of worry upon him as he sighed deeply—too old for a twenty-two year old who had always possessed so much vitality. "Well… if you think so, Sirius… alright then."

Part Six 

            The Weasleys left Grimmauld Place in mid-August, to spend a few weeks in the Burrow, and Hermione too departed for some time with her parents—leaving Lupin and I relatively alone in the house. Members of the Order moved in and out all day, and Mrs. Black still screamed obscenities about half-breeds at us, but mostly we were by ourselves with the ghost of Sirius, and our thoughts. My mind often wandered to the Department of Mysteries, so much that when Lupin actually mentioned the Ministry, I half-believed I imagined it.

            He held an official-looking letter up to the light one morning after breakfast (a responsibility we share, taking turns at the cooking and cleaning—his omelets are more than decent), frowning slightly at it. "Dumbledore sent this—the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures seems to require us. Per Dumbledore's statements about the night Voldemort marked you, the Minister is keen to have you registered as a Parselmouth, before you come of age. That, along with any other curses and abilities that lie dormant within you from the Dark Lord." He looked distinctly unhappy about something; I looked up from the plate I was drying with bemused eyes.

            "You said 'us'…"

            Lupin's mouth twitched humorlessly. "I have to update registration each year, and be informed on any new… legislation, regarding my status or what have you… They've called you and I in on the same day to see if we come together—Fudge is still wary of Dumbledore, especially now that he has a war effort to work on. And the fact that Dumbledore has two… of _us_… under his belt while trying to fight the Dark Lord—well, it doesn't look good for him."

            I watched him shrewdly. "They think I'll go turncoat on them because of Voldemort's influence, right? Think he'll possess me, or that I'll turn out an even Darker wizard because I've got a Dark gift?"

            Now I had made Lupin smile; he almost looked proud. "Getting keen, Harry, very good. You hit it on the nose—Fudge is afraid of the two of us—he didn't like me last time either, so I'm not surprised. He'll probably have them check if I made you a werewolf. A good thing I didn't give in to either of us, perhaps?"

            He arched an eyebrow in question, and I looked away. We'd sidestepped the issue for a good week by this time, and I still felt as though I walked on eggshells to avoid it. I didn't feel embarrassed, or ashamed—but I knew I had pained Lupin to some extent and that I couldn't take the matter back, because I still meant it. I may not have been going out into the street and waiting for large trucks to snap my neck or squeeze my entrails out of my mouth, but the longing had done nothing if not intensified, gnawing at my stomach and demanding to be sated. I knew he understood it, but also that he couldn't indulge it—and this was the reason.

            "Since when do Marauders follow rules?" I muttered under my breath, returning to the dish and momentarily forgetting the Ministry and all the implications that rested there.

            I felt Lupin's sharp gaze on me and refused to turn and face it. I knew he would hear the comment—perhaps I posed it as a challenge, or perhaps I was simply questioning myself. The pounding of my heart, loud in my ears, grew faster and more feral with every moment.

            "You ask the impossible and most forbidden of me, Harry—please don't. If I… were to bite you… you would hate me forever. It's a curse that cannot be removed—like Parseltongue—you cannot wash it clean from yourself."

            I started on a skillet ferociously, keeping my eyes straight ahead, the remembrance of my nightmares haunting me and goading me onward. "You said it was incredible. You said it hurt—it tears you apart. You said you need something real to be with you. I need to be real, too… to just _be_… and not torture myself thinking. Why is it so impossible?"

            I could actually sense Lupin shaking his head sorrowfully, still watching me with a mix of compassion and pity. "_You_ are incredible. You want to be torn apart—there are easier ways of doing that without becoming a werewolf. You want your bones to break and the hair on your body to burn and re-grow itself, your muscles and skin to stretch and tighten and snap all in a few seconds? Just so you can forget how incredible you are for one night? Because you won't forget pain in that time, Harry, you won't forget grief, or death, or hatred, or love. I never do—that's why I loathe the transformations so much now."

            If I had been holding a plate at the moment and not a skillet, I might have broken it in two. I go through these waves—acceptance for a short while, then anger, letting it boil up in me until it reaches combustion and I explode with passion and frustration. I began to sense that the pain I felt was no longer simply my own, but my companion's—love on levels I had never experienced lodged within, and betrayal I couldn't even conceive of, sorrow so deep it could cause the statues of Roman gardens to weep stony tears. How he remained so damned lucid and calm I attributed to his lycanthropy, the ability to purge himself in those nights of freedom from human bindings, which may have been partly true, had it no been for what he'd just told me. So many impulses and needs rocketed around my head at once, conflicting and contradictory; stay where I was, safe and somewhat neutral and not bring up the subject again; slam my fist into a wall to vent my anger without hitting Lupin, which was where I wanted to vent it; run to him, curl up next to him, apologize for being such an unforgivable brat and not understanding, once again, his pain as separated from my own.

            The first of these is the closest to what I did, and without truly thinking about it either—a course Hermione would lecture me heartily for. I quelled. The need to run within me I stashed into a small box and hid it under the floorboard of my mind—knowing full well that its monstrous occupant would explode the truth forth sooner or later, but hiding it nevertheless, and praying that Lupin's eyes would cease their endless probing into my being. They did not.

            "H-how exactly," I started, in an undisguised attempt to change the subject I had opened so unwisely, "will they find out what… powers—were transferred to me?" The asking of this question was not completely a barefaced lie; the idea did concern me a bit. Would there be a magical x-ray prepared to find various forms of Dark magic deep within me?

            Out of the corner of my eye, I detected Lupin take a muggle newspaper off the stack he'd collected, searching for missing person ads that may provide the Order with clues—it occurred to me long before this that Lupin's lack of missions was in an effort to baby-sit me, and had it been anyone else given the duty I most likely would have been heavily resentful. But he too was grieving and probably not entirely fit to be conducting long and drawn-out missions against Death Eaters; Grimmauld Place had been transformed into a virtual funeral home, a recuperative incubator for the pair of us so that we may "get over it" with the help of one another, then be shifted easily back into the flow of polite adult society, school and work, with healthy minds. In short, a load of psycho babble and empty words. The shallow comforting of patting hands and falsely sympathetic condolences, eyes that reached the skin only, people who relied solely on their vision and screamed when someone broke a dish.

            "Advanced curse detector," Lupin began, coolly answering my question, still boring his eyes into me in between making snips in the newsprint—face of a missing child here, kidnapped woman there—so what it they were politicians or homeless beggars? They were gone. "Used for finding those with Dark gifts, mostly by Aurors. No one quite knows what powers Voldemort possesses—what the Ministry finds in your body will help with the war effort." I could hear the anger and discomfiture creep into his voice, causing me to finally make a half turn, a watery glass clutched in one hand and towel in the other, to meet his eyes. He cleared his throat a bit. "Dumbledore said—I'm… to bring a report back. Of course—as they're still anxious to—what they find out, Harry, could land you in St. Mungo's." I hadn't seen him this uncomfortable in quite some time, nor this disconcerted. "If they detect certain latent abilities in you, Fudge might find you dangerous enough to be locked out of the way, to keep you from endangering his political stability, and make sure that you don't switch sides. They might find a way to declare you insane—it doesn't take much—and commit you. And your relations would never do anything to stop them, Harry, they don't know about our laws, they couldn't protect you if they wanted to." He put his paper down as though he couldn't concentrate on it any longer, and looked me in the eye, almost apologetically. "Getting the report is the only way to get around this; we've got to stay one step ahead of Fudge, or at least level with him. You could very easily be taken as a ward of the Ministry, and the Order would have no say in what happens to you. They could keep you shut away in a padded room at St. Mungo's for the rest of your life. I—I couldn't take that—I don't want that to happen, Harry." 

            I returned his look steadily, trying to hide my shaking hands that meticulously and obsessively dried the glass. "Look, it's okay—I know I'm a ham radio for Dumbledore and a lab rat fir the Ministry, I'll get over it. You have orders… you don't have to blame yourself for everything. I want to stay with you, anyways—you think I want to go to St. Mungo's? But…" I remained still, catching the questioning in his glance. "Well… you're really all I've got left, you know…" I was surprised at how little awkwardness his gaze made me feel; his features had softened, allowing me to continue. "All I've got left of them—my parents, Sirius… If you're going to start going on missions again, you've got to promise me something first." It occurred to me how foolish it may seem for me to demand anything of him, but a cold fear in the deepest tissues of my heart spurred me forward almost valiantly. "Promise that you won't do anything stupid. That you won't run off and get yourself—well, _killed_… that you won't—you won't—leave me." My voice had begun to quaver and grow heavy. "Okay?" So feeble and so weak I sounded to my own ears, that I wanted to bury my head in the dishwater.

            Realization dawned on Lupin's face. He abandoned completely the stack of muggle newspapers and came to stand next to me. "Sirius didn't leave you," were his quiet words.

            I grew stiff, feeling distinctly cold, and ignored with difficulty the hand that had closed gently, but firmly, on my arm. My attention suddenly grew fixed on a troublesome spot on the glass I still was wiping dry. "Yes, he did. He left you, he left me, and it's all my fault. I shouldn't have looked in the Pensieve. I should have taken the paper off the mirror. I shouldn't have let our last conversation be about him and my dad's bullying—why didn't I tell him…?" I felt a hand on mine, forcing me to abandon my infatuation with the spotless glass.

            "You flew a thestral to London, broke into the Department of Mysteries, and risked your life, all based solely on a dream that Sirius may have been in danger. You never had to tell him, Harry. Sometimes things don't have to be said, they're simple truths that we know by instinct alone. He knew a long time ago that you loved him, and trying to save him, no matter what the odds, only proved it more. It's Voldemort who turned that love against the both of you, used it to kill him and almost kill you, a matter that was beyond your control. If you had learned Occlumency, he'd have lured Sirius out and held him captive for real. You could not have predicted all the myriad of different paths to be taken, nor that the events that have happened would lead to Sirius's death, nor could you have changed it. It is _not_ your fault, understand?" He dived into my eyes again, perhaps smelling the terror of my dreams and the smell of death that clung, irrevocably, to my skin.

            "I'll promise you, Harry, but you must promise me something in return—_quid pro quo_, remember? Promise me that when we're at the Ministry, you won't go looking for the veil. You cannot dwell on death and forget that life comes before it." His lines of care and concern deepened for me, and I looked with an unfathomable web of thoughts into his eyes, finding that they mirrored my own. But how could I promise such a thing? I am as the pharaohs of Egypt, Victor Frankenstein, Owen Meany, all possessed with that boundless dimension called Death. The ragged veil flutters before my memory, the warm grip and ephemeral hands pull me between the two worlds without cessation. And like Owen Meany's Mary Magdalene, like Owen Meany himself once he'd filled his own doomed prophecy, I am entirely armless. GOD HAS TAKEN MY ARMS. I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT.

            Just will-o'-the-wisp little decisions, nothings and forgets. I never said a single nice thing to Kreacher; it was nothing, really. Forgot to clear my mind before sleeping; an excusable little mistake. Leave out a line at the bottom of a letter; I'll say it next time. And suddenly there _is_ no next time. Miraculous how fast I could learn to produce a Patronus to protect me during Quidditch, such a singular, selfish goal, and yet I'm such a slow learner with those little things, "fine distinctions," Snape had called them. Those hair's width little lines that separate truth and dreams, reality and imaginings, justice and expediency, Olympus versus bloody Troy, Electra battling her sister Chrysothemis—and then, of course, the incredible chasm that could appear between today and tomorrow, the day with life and love, the day without. GOD HAS TAKEN MY ARMS.

            "I promise that I won't go looking for it," I at last said, picking the glass back up without purpose. For the rest of my days, I shall never have to look for that veil—I could sleepwalk and find myself before it.

            Lupin appeared unconvinced, but spoke lightly nevertheless. "Good. Because we're staying at the Ministry for a good portion of the night."

            I should have known that information about my "latent powers" would be highly confidential, and would never simply fly into a member of the Order's hands; much less a werewolf's. In order to stay in the Ministry, Lupin had to have cause—his registration—and couldn't leave until his mission was complete. We would hang about in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office until nightfall, meet up with Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, and hide out somewhere in the Department of Mysteries until the place had emptied out sufficiently. I was to stay with Tonks while Kingsley and Lupin ran up to rummage the files and make of copy of mine. Then, with a hop and a skip, we'd all be back at Headquarters; none of this, however, did anything to ease either Lupin or myself all morning. We would be back in the Department of Mysteries—I wasn't the only one to whom the hands beckoned.

            I AM GOD'S INTRUMENT.

            The movement of a flock of pigeons is extraordinary. One flick, however small the flick may be, in their direction, a sea of gentle gray heads bobbing up and down in seeming chaos, and they can be counted upon to flinch. Not only the pigeon that suffered the unpredicted movement from a foreign creature—but all of them. It begins as a ripple, a wave as of sound traveling outwards, an explosion of wings and flaps and agitated pecks, until all pigeons are at rest again. To what exact position each pigeon moves, at what second the wave will hit every individual, cannot be calculated, but a single truth exists: they will move. It is no mathematical fact, but merely a constant of observation. The pigeons possess no hive intelligence or alike mind, they move simply because it I integral in being pigeon. Humans behave in the same fashion.

            Pigeons moved in shocked droves as I appeared, trumping along behind Professor Lupin down the streets of London, cool and composed, as though I belonged. It seemed all that vast expanse of buildings and smoke and hazy mid-morning sky rent with the sounds of traffic could harbor was he and I. I think the passing cars taunted him as much as they did me, though I've never thought to ask him. So close, so damned easy, just a little step out from behind a parked van and there you go—once point to Free Will, take that, Predestination! I never liked that team, anyway.

            Lupin and I were wordless throughout the entire journey, both swathed in black cloaks and hoods, keeping to the shadows and seemingly invisible to surrounding muggles. Perhaps it is our shabbiness that renders us so unremarkable—baggy, faded clothes, pale, tired faces, the pervading drench of death upon us, and only the joint glitter of surreal eyes to mark us as something other, or more, than mere human. He kept his hand on my arm, assuring himself that I remained near. I found myself walking closer in step with him, intrigued by an unnaturalness in the way I could detect his scent. It gave me a curious shiver akin to déjà vu… I was suddenly transported to the Forbidden Forest, smelling the drug-like dirt and ozone of rainwater on damp, rotting leaves, the deep smell of old wood and pine resin hardened on trees, the fresh, intoxicating scent cold breezes. He could have led me straight off a cliff and I wouldn't have noticed, too drunk on him to care.

            A red, double-decker bus racketed by and we both stopped abruptly. It had, in truth, passed within sheer inches of us; I'd felt the invisible air swell by my right shoulder. Lupin stared after it with a curious expression and I realized he had pulled me out of the way. No one walking by even noticed. It was as though we were the only people on the street in that instant, when his eyes left the retreating bus and found mine. I knew then that he is, and always has been, aware of that damn prophecy. I could have severed the chains then and there, flew away on dark wings of death. Crash.

            His heart was beating with incredible speed.

            _Thump thump, thump thump…_

And suddenly the pulse of traffic didn't matter. I knew far inside myself that I could walk deep into that fray and feel the same hands around my chest, beckoning me back towards life. I think, perhaps, that's what life means.

            Predictable as always, the pigeons continued to flutter out of our path in foaming gray waters, landing again only to start the process all over for another passerby. Perhaps the thought not to do so would someday occur to them, but _why?_

            My odd afternoon passed in a haze. Waiting for hours while Lupin struggled over nasty-looking paperwork, form d-25 to form g-32 and so forth—then his anxious hovering as curse experts and potion masters examined me, pouring countless concoctions down my throat and muttering to themselves, exchanging the occasional glance. When at last it was over, they left the two of us alone for some time in the examination room while they went to analyze their results. As the door closed with a terse snap, Lupin sat down next to me on the stiff cot and took my hand, which I only then realized had begun to tremble.

            "They're probably just going to assign you a number in a few days, that's all. You might find things a bit hard, but they didn't seem overly concerned about what was found—a few changes in rights, some difficulty in getting a few kinds of jobs. Don't worry yourself too much—I'll take care of you."

            The bitter, acid taste of the many potions lingered on in my mouth, mixing with my saliva and coating my throat. Lord Voldemort on the loose, and the idiots were trying to give me a number…? My mind wandered to a few days previous, when I'd awoken in the darkness of his quarters. Why I'd had such a dream when I fell beck to sleep continued to haunt me.

                 "Professor," I started tentatively, eyes dashing to the door and assuring it would not reopen. "I have something to tell you, but I'm… kind of afraid you're going to laugh. So you have to promise you won't, okay?"

            Lupin licked his lips and nodded, searching my eyes but visually hesitating to smell me out. "Alright, I promise. Go on."

            I decided it would be easier to say it in a rush; how it came out, however, was so stuttering it took forever to be done with. "I—the other night—that is I think I—had a dream—th-that you… that you… kissed me."

            Lupin said nothing. His eyes fixed almost obsessively onto mine, an he appeared to ignore all else—including his hand that had tightened painfully on mine, and the other that was working uselessly, twisting and untwisting the fabric of my cloak. "You—you had a dream like that, did you?" he finally said, voice low and calm. I nodded, feeling increasingly ashamed. I was about to apologize profusely when I doubled over in pain. It was as though cold fingers had placed themselves around my heart and squeezed at the blood-infused flesh. Lupin half-caught me as I leaned forward into him, holding my chest and wanting to claw at it—find the hand—tear it out and stop the pain. And the hand that had been twisting in the fabric of my cloak wound around to my back, tracing light patterns along my spine and ribs. When I closed my eyes, the white, snake-like face of many a nightmare appeared, laughing hideously at something, holding his wand pointed at my heart, and cruel pain shot through me once more. I started and opened my eyes.

            Lupin's concerned, careworn young face met me there, and the pain, as quickly as it had come, stopped. "I thought you'd learned to block his influence by now," he stated, soft but stern. I shook my head.

            "I have, you know that. That wasn't Voldemort—I was seeing him, through someone else's eyes this time, and it wasn't my scar that hurt—I felt like I was under the Cruciatus, like he was pointing it at my heart." I gripped my chest reassuringly, as though checking to see the muscle within still beat. Lupin examined me thoughtfully.

            "Sad that you would recognize the Cruciatus Curse so easily, Harry," he said almost dreamily, feeling my pulse, then placed a hand on my chest, over mine. "You shouldn't. You should be like Ron and Hermione, blind to thestrals and deaf to voices behind the veil. You should be practicing Quidditch right now, not being tested for long-term curses in your blood and hiding in the Ministry. This isn't the way things were supposed to be."

            I almost laughed at the irony of this. "Don't you—don't you believe in fate at all, Professor?"

            He smiled wryly. "I believe in cause and effect—that we make decisions that shape the future. I believe we are ultimately responsible for our own lives, but we must also coexist with the chaos of millions of other lives around us. There is a dance to it all—the random violence, the chance victims. The things we cannot stop and that have no logical explanation. A plus of being a werewolf—things don't always require logic, one learns to accept the random waltz of it all and not look for justification. I do not believe there was any greater purpose to my becoming a werewolf—it merely happened, and I have strived to make the best of it. I think life is far more beautiful that way. It is only in instinct that we can predict anything."

            I listened, enraptured, the longing flying against my ribcage once again. He was somehow beautiful in that moment, and I feared to take my eyes from him, afraid he would disappear like a spirit of dark wind in an instant. The lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled again, somewhat sadly. "I know what you're seeing, Harry. It's nothing more than an illusion… the wolf luring you, trying to catch you and make you it's own. It's in love with you, you know. It has been your entire life. Not because you were the Boy-Who-Loved or the one meant to destroy the Dark Lord—it has no such distinctions. It loves you for no other reason than a pair of bright green eyes hunting for one person in an immense sea of many. For a silence simply waiting to break and howl misery at the moon, for something devoid of emptiness. No destiny to it… just because you played a senseless game with me as a child. That's why it loves you. You smell like peppermint and chocolate because you seem to favor magical sweets shaped like amphibians, and for that it loves you too. It makes no logical sense—the heart seldom does."

            As much as I like Tonks, it was sheer torture the first hour we hid together. The four of us boarded ourselves up in a musty cupboard, full of waxy boxes and broken hourglasses, sometime during the early evening. Tonks tried amiably to keep me entertained throughout, changing her hair and eyes into strange conglomerations of snake-like locks and cat's eyes—the kind of thing she does to keep Hermione and Ginny giggling all through dinner. However, she soon tired of this upon realizing I was too anxious and lost in thought to smile, let alone laugh, and left me to my agitated and almost obsessive reading. I knew I was to be left with her, safe and sound, while Kingsley and Lupin snuck off to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, in search of my file. From the looks they kept exchanging, it promised to be quite some affair; the thing had to be heavily guarded by magical wards and curses, a primary reason why Lupin had to be present for this mission. I knew from experience that he wouldn't chance anyone but himself transporting me back to Headquarters, thus my dangerous presence on this little jaunt. There was simply no chance that we could be the only ones after this particular file—the Death Eaters, and Lord Voldemort himself, would without doubt be trying to bet the Order to it. And aside from everything else, I think it was of some comfort to Lupin to see me there before moving into unknown peril, into Danger's unpredictable path again. Or perhaps he sought to comfort me.

            He was sat on a box on my left, watching my eyes as they crawled and drank their way through page after page, "Aquifus Flaré Curse," "Curse of Suffocation," "Water Summoning Curse and Counters"—all the horrible things a Death Eater could potentially do and how I could use it against them. I have an uncanny knack for torturing myself. A constant dance, really, with pairs and lone dancers dropping randomly off the floor, to watch, whispering from the dark sidelines, just out of sight as we continue, exhausted, still trying to move in step under the harsh lights. Before I could find an adequate countercurse for misery, of course, the Ministry had emptied and Kingsley beckoned to Lupin, indicating that they'd better get a move on. He rose to the door but Lupin remained at my side, eyes still on me, waiting for their weight to force me into looking at them. After willfully reading the same sentence a good five times over, I acquiesced. On the surface I knew the danger of this was minimal, and that they'd done worse before. But woe befall the one to stop the bulbous maggots of strange, intense dread that ate away at my stomach lining, a sense that the source of the squeezing in my heartstrings had been all to near. 

           "Be careful, " I whispered tensely to him, and felt his grip on my shoulder. 

            "You don't worry about me, Harry," he said, smiling slightly. "Remember your promise."

            _Remember yours._

            I remembered. God, how I remembered! I swallowed and nodded, letting my gaze fall. And with a pointed look at Tonks, Lupin straightened and swept out the closet door, letting it click softly behind him.

            Hours passed. The silence of the walls and space around us was deafening. We remained wholly silent through the ordeal of minutes and seconds, cruel Time playing tricks on us every once in while—but when I saw her watch, complete with several strange dials and hands, click over to midnight, Tonks began to take on a distinctly worried air. 

            Another hour; despite my drooping eyelids, I had begun to pace, having finished _Defensive Magic and It's Uses Against the Dark Arts, Vol. III_, regrettably. Tonks, who had managed to keep herself planted firmly on her box, nevertheless shook her leg incessantly. My thoughts were frantic and virtually sporadic, leaping effortlessly from the utterly mundane to the castle-in-the-sky possibilities. The tiny voice in my head (which still sounds suspiciously like Hermione) kept reasoning these panicked tangents away in an almost soothing fashion. Perhaps I suffer some mild Oedipal complex, and have managed to make best friends with the girl most like my mother—or perhaps Snape has been right all along, and I'm the breathing, green-eyed reincarnation of my father, searching out a woman, in typical past-life fashion, whom resembles Lily Evans.

            Perhaps Lupin had found the veil. Perhaps he was with my father and mother and Sirius, perhaps he broke his promise after all. If he did, so could I. I could find him, find the veil, drag them all back or stay on the other side with them, there would be no one to stop me—not Tonks, not Hermione, not Ron, not Mrs. Weasley, and not you, Professor Lupin. You could lead me over a cliff and I'd never notice.

            I was so lost in thought that, when the scream sounded, I thought I had completely imagined it, or plucked it from some lost memory, a dementor nightmare from which I would soon be awoken from, on the History of Magic classroom floor, with Lupin tapping my face. It was heart-chilling and bone-splitting, reverberating around outside the door and seeping through its cracks, a high-pitch scream of pain that seemed to stretch on into eternity. Tonks leapt upwards from her box and leaned against the door, ear pressed against it cautiously; I stopped dead, still trying to decide whether this was a dream, hallucination, or bare reality. When Tonks had moved into the hallway with a murmur for me to stay firmly where I was, and slapping my own cheeks wasn't working, I knew this had to be real.

            Minutes stretched on and I paced endlessly; the scream had been a woman's, I couldn't have been Lupin, the tiny voice said—this thought, however, did little to sooth me. The feeling in my heart intensified, of a far different caliber now; when I squeezed my eyes shut, I could, for an instant, see a blur of Bellatrix Lestrange's face twisted in excruciating agony, before the image was lost in a red of rage and misery. Confusion wracked me. Voldemort may feel rage, but never such horrifying sadness—it could not be his mind and heart pushing into mine. 

            I do not know to this day whether the next sound I heard was real or illusion; perhaps it was both. Perhaps the meaning of reality is not so much what atoms and molecules create, but what is tangible to our minds, and our hearts. Perhaps it was my longing that brought it on—perhaps I hadn't studied Occlumency yet hard enough. I know that my head snapped up, my muscles froze, my feet fell heavily in mid-step, my arms went limp, and my eyes retreated into mesmerized obsession, as an unearthly howl cut icily through the air, tickling my soul and silencing all else—a dark wind of rushing death and passion, ephemeral hands, calling me to it.

            Without a second thought, I had grabbed my wand, opened the door, and was gone.


	4. That I fear the most

Author's Note 

            At long last, the final chapter. I'm so very sorry I didn't get this posted sooner, school started and I've been entrenching myself in Oedipus and Antigone. Please enjoy, and review—I do enjoy some good criticism. Yes, Susie, Harry does speak "Aubrey." (Inside joke, I have my own language.) Most hearty thanks, once more, to Amity, who has loyally reviewed every chapter to date and given great feedback. Thank you so much! Your last review was simply… stirring… beyond words… in my own language, _muh_! The sequel is now in the works, look for Chapter One (parts one and two), in a few weeks. Part Two is proving to be very… long. And arduous. Adieu!

Lastly On Wolves 

            The howl, as many researchers have found, is key in the wolf language—a language quite similar to that of humans. The howl signifies caste and binds the pack together, bringing up startling adrenaline and signaling the start of the hunt, victory, grief, and heralds the pack should nay member require help when in danger. It is the crucial key to the wolf heart—rendering the pack members naked to one another, revealing the truth so that they may be truly one.

Part Seven 

            If one had looked through a foyer or draperied living room window of the house atop the hill, named by most who knew it "Godric's Hollow," they'd have most likely thought themselves looking into the perfect family, perhaps one seen on the front of a Christmas card. A little boy, one or two years of age, tap dancing a stuffed lion across the carpet; a young mother, sitting on the floor, engaged in play with him; a father, a look of aged wisdom in his eyes, perhaps tired from his day at work, content in an armchair by the fire, surveying all with a gentle smile alighting his features.

            However, very few, and none in the village nearby, could look in that window, because no one could see the house at all. The gentle garden path that once lead to a low front gate now ended in nothing—the trick-or-treaters, who had always gone to the house for its fabulous treats and kind residents (a woman dressed as a rather convincing witch beside a bubbling cauldron, a man dressed as a vampire ready to pop up and scare the unwary) all suddenly forgot to go there on their rounds. And though the family was certainly a loving one, the atmosphere at the moment was much less than card-worthy. Lily's playing with Harry was, in truth, an effort to let the boy think everything normal, and to mask her own anxiousness. And James, fighting the writhing dread in his own heart, married to guilt and betrayal, sorrow, disillusionment, and even a touch of failure, failure to whom he did not yet entirely know. He watched the scene before him feeling as though he would never see it again—unaware that he was completely right.

            When Harry had become consumed with muttering incoherent talk to his stuffed toy, Lily looked up at her husband, uneasiness in her eyes. "I wish one of them was here, James. I'd feel a lot safer. Maybe Sirius…"

            James smiled heavily; something about him had aged entirely, making him seem older than he was. He pushed his emotions away to the farthest corner of his mind to be dealt with later—Harry was too keen a pup not to pick up on them, and Lily knew him too well. "Don't worry, love. Sirius is checking up on Peter tonight, to make sure he's safe—he's coming by tomorrow. I told him to park that bike somewhere away so no one sees him come down, and to Disillusion it. Remus knows that motorbike, he's no fool."

            Lily frowned at him, eyes clear and possessed of the same look she gave both her son and each one of the Marauders in their turn—mothering, stern, and commanding, while comforting at the same time in its clarity. "I know you don't really believe it's Remus. He knows about the prophecy, Dumbledore told all five of us… Remus, knows what would happen, he adores Harry—and you—too much to endanger us. I think it's someone else in the Order. Just woman's intuition, I suppose. It's been getting better lately, you even said so yourself."

            James swallowed hard, his face tight and agonized, fighting the emotions that fought for dominance at the back of his mind. "I know, don't you think I know? But I have to trust what Sirius says—he's more objective than I am right now." His eyes fell on Harry playing, now quietly, on the rug in his blue pajamas, making his lion chase invisible prey—or perhaps letting the restless creature run across the wild living room terrain. James felt his spirits lighten slightly, as though he were that terry-cloth lion with sewed-on button black eyes and wide smile, chasing shadows in the interwoven colors of the rug. Lily followed his eyes sadly.

            "I don't agree," she said softly and thoughtfully, her voice stronger than his had been. "I think he's just as biased as you are, just as responsible-feeling as a father. It's not just you and me in this family; when I married you, I knew I was marrying all the Marauders, in a way. You can't expect any of them to be more objective than you when it comes to our lives, or to Harry. We're—" she was suddenly cut off by James's hand in the air, his eyes watchful and alert. Lily froze, and listened. The slight crunching of small rocks and dry leaves, as of someone walking up the garden path, reached their ears.

            "Sirius," said Lily with relief, closing her eyes. "He must have come early."

            James, however, got up quickly and walked steadily towards the window. Some part of himself knew by instinct Padfoot's step, knew Moony's step, and Wormtail's. The footfalls outside, now nearing the gate, were none of them. Before he reached the window, he felt a tugging on his robes, and looked down into Harry's bright green eyes. The little boy pointed to the front door and announced, "Buh!"

            A wave of understanding hit James in a frightening rush; his back went rigid; he picked Harry up, hugged him tightly for one swift moment, and handed the small boy to his wife.

            "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!" He fought to keep the panic from his voice as he drew the mahogany wand from his robe pocket and faced the door resolutely.

            Lily's eyes widened—she gripped Harry and, with a lingering look on her husband that seemed to drink him in, memorizing for the last time, stumbled from the room just as the sound of the door bursting open reached her ears, along with that terrible cackle of high-pitched laughter… Her feet took her into the kitchen, she reached a hand out towards the knob—the back door opened a foot—and, as though attracted by magnet, snapped shut again.

            "No…" Lily whispered. The sounds of clicks and shuts moved all around her, from every door and window out of the house, intermixed with James's screams and a wave of pain and determination that was both his and her own flowing through her veins like a drug. "NO!" The young mother pulled at the knob both obstinately and frantically—still, it refused to budge; in a flurry of terrible rage and panic, she hurled a Reductor Curse at a window above the sink, where it was absorbed flawlessly as though hitting a pond of water. Harry whimpered and hugged her about the neck, just as James was hurled through the swinging kitchen door, shattering a chair. Voldemort's white, glaring, snake-like face glowered in at him and raised his wand again, laughing cruelly. James struggled to his feet, aided by Lily's well-aimed Impediment Jinx at the Dark Lord to protect her husband as he recovered.

            "Lily, up the stairs! Try to contact Sirius and Remus, tell them to get Dumbledore and the rest of the order, go!" He raised his wand and fired at a still-recovering Voldemort, while Lily plummeted up the back stairs, holding tightly onto a silent and quivering Harry. She slammed her bedroom door shut and said a Colloportus Charm before plopping Harry safely down on the bed—hers and James's bed, where the many smells of their magic and their dreams and their power still lingered strongly, too many to count but all immensely familiar to the little boy, sitting, seeking to immerse himself in them and make everything alright again.

The sounds of shouted spells and curses, the occasional breaking and crashes of a struggle, still reached Lily, and she rushed to the fire, dashing powder hastily at it. "Sirius Black!" she shouted into the flames. "Sirius, please be there!" The unkempt kitchen of Sirius's small bachelor's flat greeted her, utterly abandoned. "Sirius, damn you, where are you?!" Several moments passed in silence, and she shouted still more, hearing nothing of him. At last Lily pulled her head out to see Harry on the bed, shaking and holding his chest as though he was cold. Lily rushed forward and hugged him close, shushing his whimpering; the battle had now reached the back stairs, and the bright light of magic could be seen under the door, dancing eerily on the carpet.

"Oh God," Lily whispered. Still holding the little boy, she returned to the flames and got ready to call Remus, before being stopped by Harry's wailing cry and a sudden bright green light, which flooded the room from under the door jam, filtering over the patchwork quilt on the bed, sending an icy claw over Lily's heart as though preparing to rip, tear, wrench something away. Her breath froze in her chest cavity, her arms began shaking violently, as the words "_Avada kedavra_" filled the air and echoed forever into the night.

"JAMES!" Lily screamed, as much in physical pain as mental, as the claws, true to their intentions, twisted through the tissues of her heart and pulled the very core from it, ripping the cardiovascular valves, making shreds of the walls and veins, leaving her blood to trickle out and invade the rest of her body like cold poison, leaving her empty, with only the warm spark in her arms to keep her lungs contracting and expanding in life. The green light faded, and a dull, heavy _thump_ sounded from the hallway in a sickening anticlimax. Harry's arms wound around his mother's neck, his mother who stood, like her son, frozen and near-broken, beyond tears and on the edge of uncertainty, waiting for those footsteps to reach the door…

"Shhhh… It's okay, Harry, you'll be okay…" Lily whispered, her voice like a breeze on mountaintops, fragile yet backed by a heavy gale, hugging Harry to her, where he drank in her scent—mother's milk, chamomile, lavender teas, sharp chives from the garden, gentle autumn sun and pumpkin spice… and always, always the lilies, death flowers growing from the earth, fresh with morning dew that laced tiny, magical cobwebs like jewels and swayed, played by October mistrals. He felt himself being placed gently down on the bed, saw Lily pulling out her wand again and standing before him, shaking with loss and only half-whole, drawing ragged, valiant breath.

And there were the footsteps. "_Alohomora_…" The door swung inward. A towering shape swathed in black, a ghost-white face disrupted by slits of red eyes, spidery fingers gripping a wand—Lord Voldemort all but floated in on the wings of his victory, sneering horribly. Lily's hands around her wand shook with grief and rage; both fired their spells at the same moment—the stunning spells met in mid-air and rocketed away in an explosion of fiery red. Fury glanced across the Dark Lord's features.

"Get out of the way, you foolish girl, or end up like your dear husband!"

Lily's bright green eyes at once burned with hatred and power—she raised her wand and fired another charm—Voldemort conjured a silver shield—it bounced away harmlessly—then, with a horrifying sneer, struck her with a vengeance. Lily screamed, doubling over and half-covering the little boy, shaking in incredible pain, dropping her wand to the floor, where the Dark Lord picked it up silkily and snapped it; the snap reached her mind, like the breaking of a fragile stem, the tinkle of glass—she realized it was the singular sound of the last shreds of her heart breaking in half.

Eyes narrowed, he lifted the curse; Lily remained, half-crouching over her child on the bed; both mother and son shook as though convulsing. Lily straightened in front of Harry, facing the wand, weaponless save for her own body. She blocked Voldemort as he moved forward, arm outstretched for the boy, fiercely and desperately.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" she heard herself plead, finally out of options and allowing the panic to slip into her voice.

"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…"

Harry whimpered from the bed, trying to call for Daddy, Uncle Padfoot, or Uncle Moony, but found he had no voice.

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"

He made as though to push her to one side. "Stand aside…"

She grabbed his arm, a fire she felt had been beaten out her coming into her eyes. "Not Harry! Not Harry! Please—I'll do anything—"

Voldemort looked into the fire, thought he could feel the heat tingle on the surface of his skin, making him grow impatient. "Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"

            Tears began to well in Lily's eyes. "Please! I'll do anything, kill me instead, please—don't kill my son…"

            The Dark Lord tightened his grip around his wand and raised it. "I warned you. Now enjoy the same fate as your idiot husband—_Avada kedavra_!"

            Once again, green light flooded the room, joined by the pained screaming of Lily Potter and the high-pitched laughter of the Dark Lord. Harry whimpered again, eyes tight shut… a strange sound had filled his ears now…

            _Thump thump, thump—_

            And stopped in suspended motion, so suddenly as to be a clean break, the paralysis of time. A muffled thump as something heavy hit the floor—another high cackle of pleasure—

            "There will be none to defeat the Dark Lord… say good night, little Harry… _Avada kedavra_."

            Though there were none to see it, those same Christmas card windows, once alight with dancing fire and the warmth of a family, the riotous and gentle glow of a pack, now filled and shone coldly with green light, before the entire house collapsed into ruins.

Part Eight 

            I wandered the cold stone halls in a daze, led onwards by the lingering ghost of that single howl… Simple sensations greeted me in my reverie—a caress on my cheek, a whisper of breath on my ear, the tickle of pine and wood smoke, the beating of a heart—perhaps my own—filling the world. Blue flames flickered in black sconces, their light danced ceaselessly on every surface, on my very skin, casting a deathly, deep sea pallor upon me. My feet tugged me into the circular room full of doors—the walls spun—I automatically turned towards an entryway and opened it. The Brain Room. I had walked this path twice before, once in, once out; first chasing the vision of Sirius… and then chasing his murderer.

            I knew I'd never have to look to find that door at the end of the Brain Room, what I would find behind it. The longing deep in my ribcage guided me, resonating within that sweet, chilling howl. I neared the door, gathered my breath, and opened it.

            A feeling rather sickly like déjà vu hit me in a foul-smelling wave—Death Eaters moved in battle along those stone tiers, engaged with Kingsley (dealing with three of them), Tonks (being backed steadily into a corner by another two), and, fearsomely, Lupin, whom I had never seen looking so ferocious, fighting a single Death Eater, his wand flashing like a rapier. And on the dais, as though they stood waiting for me, were Lord Voldemort and a small, plumped servant who cringed at his feet—Wormtail. My eyes met the Dark Lord's for a heart-stopping moment, before the voice of my most recent nightmares cut through the air like a bell…

            "Awww… look there, werewolf, it's your little pup come to save you, just as he came to save my dear cousin…" undulated Bellatrix Lestrange's horrid baby voice, whom I realized with a jolt was Lupin's bony dueling partner; he'd gone on to continue the duel neither Sirius or I could finish. Intense agony filled my being, originating in the very chambers of my heart, more pain than I could ever possess on my own—Lupin raised his wand almost mechanically, croaking the low word "_Crucio_!" Bellatrix fell hard to the ground, screaming, and I felt myself run forward to Lupin's side. I grabbed his arm.

            "Professor, stop—" It only then seemed to occur to him that I was in the room; he froze, tense, testing the air; he looked down at me in a stunned paralysis, but my blood had already chilled when I realized I recognized the scream—the same woman's scream that had reached me and Tonks in the closet. But his, joining my own, had been the pain I felt, and not that of the Cruciatus—not that time, at least.

            "Harry…" he whispered, terrified, while lowering his wand. The screaming stopped—Lupin touched my face in a haze, oblivious to the movement around us—we were back, again suspended in time and motion, again preventing each other from the inevitable fall. Neither of us noticed when the movements stopped, and our companions struggled against their bindings, our enemies laughed silvery laughter from behind their masks, the Dark Lord chuckled and Wormtail whimpered shrilly…

            The veil sighed as though seduced by a wan breeze… Whispers, as those of troublemaking children hiding out of sight, drifted from behind it…

Wormtail, at Voldemort's feet, began to grow incredibly pale, chancing quick, nervous glances at the ancient archway, wringing his wasted hand and the silver one, trembling violently…

            James watched from the corner of his eye as Lily's robes whipped out of sight up the back stair. The Dark Lord approached, almost nonchalantly, through the kitchen door, a mirthless smile playing about his thin lips.

            "Infuriating whelp—did you think I'd let that little Mudblood escape with your brat? I came here with a purpose, you know… if you want to save yours and your wife's lives, you'll join me, now—your little friend Peter has already seen reason… as soon as I have you, the other three members of your miserable little gang will follow. The power you could have, and all I ask in return is that child, a small token for all your lives, really. All the trouble your lot has caused me, Potter…"

            James, keeping his wand trained on the white-faced man before him, grabbed a vase full of lilies from the table, and hurled it at the doorframe before his opponent could come nearer. "I'll never join you! You think I'd sell out my family, my best friends, my _son_, just to save my own skin? You're not getting Harry, not while a single one of us draws breath!"

            _Flash_—James fell backwards into the sink with an incredible breaking sound, before doubling forward, coughing squelchily. Another spell came his way—he ducked to the right, towards the back stair—Voldemort laughed cruelly.

            "I should have known it would be the son of your little pack that would be the one who might destroy me—too bad he won't live so long enough to perform such… _great_ deeds." He shook his head pensively at James, who attempted to hide the fear growing inside with difficulty. "Such a shame, such a waste… you all would have made such excellent Death Eaters…"

            James narrowed his eyes and backed a few steps up the stairs, eyes, now become cold, never leaving the Dark Lord's. His hand trembled. "You're not getting him!" The stairwell filled with light as both fired their spells at once; when the magic had at last died down and both had moved halfway up the stairs, James being backed steadily towards the second floor hallway, Voldemort cackled once again.

            "Dumbledore had ruined you, boy… filled your mind with damn-fool ideas—you could have been great—could have helped me conquer the Wizarding world. And, instead, you are going to die in a hallway in an invisible house, needlessly, idiotically, like the fool that he's made you…"

            My senses at last re-awoke to the sound of Wormtail's ragged breathing nearby. I still stood, ominously near to that horrible archway; Lupin stood behind me, hunched protectively over my shoulders, but the look in his eyes had grown somewhat lost, even feral—he had to still have been in the mesmerized state I'd been seized by, that had brought me here. My scar continued on in the dull ache I have grown accustomed to; Lord Voldemort looked before us, smiling sinisterly.

            "I knew you'd come back here, Potter—just as I knew he would," he indicated Lupin, whose throat hummed in a low growl against the back of my skull. "The lot of you were always so very predictable—dangerous, yes, I'll give you that… but still predictable. It's always been that tiny element to lead to your undoing—at last, I will be rid of you…"

            Wormtail whimpered all the louder. "But—but my Lord, Master—" came his squeaky, abominable little voice; I felt Lupin tense—if he hadn't been crouching over me, guarding me, I think he would have torn Wormtail asunder with his bare hands. "All my years of loyal service—please, please don't—"

            Lord Voldemort smiled with mercilessness so cold it might have frozen the Christian Hell. He picked the ratty man up by what remained of his graying hair. "Wormtail, dearest Wormtail, you don't really think I'd keep a servant who owes a life to my enemies, do you? Your usefulness to me has reached its end—without these two wretches wandering about and helping to confound my plans, your connection to them is rather worthless, isn't it?" The Dark Lord raised his wand and muttered "_Crucio_!"

            Pain and Cold filled me as Wormtail's screams tore the air of the entire chamber. Lupin's arms had again wound around my chest, as though afraid I would leap towards that veil—they shook miserably and I leaned back against him, trying my hardest to assure I wouldn't leave him. The silvery laughter of the Death Eaters all around us echoed on into darkness, but none so terrible as that terrified screaming…

            James fell against the wall in a shower of glass… he could hear the Dark Lord turning the corner of the stair, could sense him preparing another Cruciatus, and he intended to be ready for him this time. Closing his eyes for a brief moment, calling up a store of something deep, something latent within, James gripped his wand and trotted up a few more steps, inches away from the second floor hallway. He flattened himself against the wall, eyes on the corner, sharp, brilliant, alert. He could hear Lily in their bedroom, still yelling for Sirius through the fire… God, Remus would never forgive him—he'd failed them, failed the Marauders, failed the Order, failed his best friends and family…

            "Potter…" taunted the voice of Lord Voldemort, as though reading his mind. "Last chance to save them—good old Remus, your best friend Sirius, sweet Lily—just one tiny little word and the nightmare ends…"

            Only one word, one thought, came to James's mind, however, one not about his dearest friends or the betrayer who'd destroyed them; he was suddenly there again, galloping heedlessly through the woods at the lead without fear, a confidence so whole and complete, if as fragile and fleeting as life itself, filled him. He _knew_. Just one word. One tiny, insignificant little word. And as the face of Hell rounded the corner, he raised his wand with a great, fearless shout.

            "NO!"

_Without the mask,_

_Where will you hide?_

_Can't find yourself,_

_Lost in your lie…_

_I know the truth now,_

_I know who you are,_

_And I don't love you anymore—_

_It never was and never will be,_

_You don't know how you betrayed me,_

_And somehow you've got everybody fooled._

The Dark Lord wrenched his robes cruelly from Wormtail's clutching, imploring fingers, and swept around to circle us pensively. His face held a serene, almost loving glance, savoring the sight of Lupin guarding me desperately. I almost caught the trickle of nostalgia in those pitiless red eyes, cat's slits, as they looked into the eerily mesmerized orbs of Remus Lupin.

            "I knew the brat would make you all go round the twist someday, Lupin, and so I was right. Wormtail told me all about your sweet little group years ago—I had the feeling the so-called 'pup' would be bred to rise against me, just as the prophecy warned. In trying to protect him you have all fallen and failed dismally. How comforting it must be to you, Lupin, knowing you shall go in the same manner as your beloved packmates."

            Something in this seemed to snap Lupin out of his fog, as I sensed him straighten behind me—though his arms did not loosen. I couldn't see his eyes, but felt, as the skin on the back of my neck prickled and gooseflesh erupted over me, running tantalizingly over my spine, the sheer, raw power in his every cell and fiber of being, radiating out from him in a savage maelstrom. He held me, not simply to restrain us both, but to prevent the Dark Lord from taking me. Some nuance in the gesture gleaned a vague familiarity, for reasons I couldn't fathom nor put into words. 

            Voldemort laughed at him. "How feeble your pack has become indeed, if that's the best you can offer me, Lupin. Come now, be reasonable. You have wanted to die for years—why not seize the opportunity—I am being merciful, after all. The truly wise punishment for you would be to let you rot on this earth alone, without the boy to keep you company in your misery, and without Wormtail to direct your hate."

            It was my turn to tense; the coldness of Lupin's scarred flash of attempted suicide burned me through his robe sleeves.

            "You're not taking him—" Lupin hissed, before being cut off.

            "From you? How very touching. I should punish you for defying me all these years—a werewolf, after all, and with so many powerful friends—you should have all been my Death Eaters. Imagine, a group like you, the power you could have had, the passion and the life, what you could have done, how great you could have been. And your little brat here—" he indicated me with a light sneer that chilled my veins—"would have been saved a lifetime of hardship. I would have overlooked his unusualness… he is a half-breed, isn't he, and a cursed-blood. It's a pity none of you were wise enough to foresee what your idiotic actions would have led to—_this_. Too young and heedless, too drunk on yourselves to weigh what I offered you. Now you are leaderless and powerless, grown weak and few and destroyed by betrayal. The beauty of your magic and youth is gone, and I grow all the more powerful for it. Ironic, don't you think?"

            Lupin relaxed; I could feel his smile. "We frightened you, Voldemort. And we still do, because you can see each one of us in Harry. We had something between us you have never felt and could never achieve, for all your years and your power. For that we will never be gone, even after death. Because you will always remember five stupid kids who weren't afraid of you, who really meant nothing, who weren't the best at absolutely everything or knew every spell and potion you could ever know, or could run the fastest in the world or got twelve O.W.L.s—five kids who were just a little clever, with a bit of magic, with perhaps too much cheek—because you will always remember, and wonder at the power you could never have."

            I thought, for a fleeting moment, that I saw anger in the Dark Lord's eyes, before it was lost in an embankment of ice. "Fool! I am the greatest sorcerer in the world, there is no power you have that I could not!" He kicked out at a whimpering Pettigrew, and I felt a swell of anger. I hated the cowering man, but I couldn't help the loyalty that had begun to grow within me. Voldemort flicked his wand and, choking, Pettigrew rose into the air, his feet leaving the ground to dangle inches above it, twitching. His face turned a steadily darkening shade of blue. An involuntary sound of protest made it's way from my throat, and Lupin gripped me a bit tighter. I found myself slipping into the grasp of the haze I had only so recently escaped, the red-blue fog of a spirit embedded in my heartstrings which acts beyond by consent, a world of instinct awakening in me somewhere between reality, longing, and dreams, between birth and death where the forever young roam beneath the moon. 

            Before I knew it, Pettigrew had been hurled headlong through the veil followed by the high-pitched laughter of my nightmare, and I was fighting viciously to be free of Lupin's grasp while the Dark Lord taunted us. We were there again, suspended, out of the wheel of life, rocks by the stream, helplessly holding on to one another. That part if myself knew, and still knows, that if I couldn't save or be the one to release Pettigrew, I wouldn't be able to save or ever let go of Remus Lupin, or Ron, or Hermione, or any living thing in the world that I love; at the same time, could I leave Lupin on this side of the veil, unsure of my return?

            Shouting came from the direction of the Brain Room, flashes of light, Death Eaters running towards the stone tiers, a panicked shout of "_Crucio_!" at Lupin and his arms suddenly leaving me, my heart both frozen and afire, kindled and dying in one instant, and the instinct, the passion, the death, possessing my feet to carry me forward into the veil, the rush of dark wind around me, a mother's kiss and a lover's caress, screams, whispers, my own heartbeat—slowing, slowing, slowing—and Lupin's voice growing far away, as though speaking from the other side of a wall.

            Lord Voldemort stumbled down several steps with the sheer force of the spell, his composure, a mask of cold and calculation, dropping before being hurriedly retrieved like a ragged strip of fabric. He gazed up into James Potter's face, at once young and old, spirited and wise, and, above all else, full of nameless power, standing on the threshold to the upstairs hall, wand still defiantly in hand, a mosaic of anger and righteousness and that interminable Something, a power which caused the air to crackle with memories and passions, Something just out of the Dark Lord's reach. He raised his wand and fired,_ How_ _dare you possess what_ _I_ _have not!_, sending his opponent flying backwards, and ascended, feeling a fury he had never graced before.

            "I offered you power, I offered you the world, you miserable whelp, and how do you repay me? A son whom you will raise to destroy me!"

            James's wand flew from his grasp, disappearing down the back stair. He swallowed, squared his shoulders, and stood up tall, just feet from his and Lily's bedroom, where he could hear Harry suddenly let out a cry. James closed his eyes. _I failed you. Harry, Lily, Remus, Sirius, even you, Peter. I wasn't strong enough._ The stench of failure rent his senses, bitter, the smell of death and decay, of deep earth where slimy things crawl. 

            "I have looked forward to this for years, Potter. Good bye, and with all my fondest to you—no one aside from your dear Headmaster has fought me so well in a good many years. You've become a man, and quite a clever one—such a tragic waste. _Avada kedavra_."

            I stopped on the threshold, and found myself at the beginning of a long, dark corridor, the veil falling back into place with a sigh behind me. Voices, once whispers, echoed in to me from a light-filled door at the end, and Pettigrew, as though being dragged towards, was some feet in front of me. My eyes widened.

            Hands.

            Hands on Pettigrew's robes, around his mouth, pulling him, coming from walls and ceiling, still more emerging—rotting, horrible hands, the hands of dementors, caressing hands soft as petals and smelling sickly-sweet, their aroma drowning the senses. I tried, with all my might, to grab onto Pettigrew, feeling tears sting my eyes as I thought of Lupin or Mrs. Weasley being dragged into this place; suddenly the hands held me too, so sweet, so gentle, like mother's hands, inviting me to the other side with long fingers, arms growing from the walls like perverse flowers. I almost fell into their spell, found myself wanting to fall into them—I shook my head to clear it, made a grab for the veil, to pull myself back out—to my horror it had been replaced by a solid wall, as though it had never existed. I cried out, holding onto Pettigrew, the hands bearing me towards the light…

            And then he was there. The embrace emerged from my dreams, the veil reappearing innocently, and I felt Lupin's arms encircle my chest, tugging me from the hands, who seemed rather reluctant to let go. Only his upper body came through the opening—I saw his face, grown ghostly in the light of the corridor. The hands released their grip on me, but I did not abandon mine on Pettigrew. The skin of his hand had begun to shrivel in death, his eyes to bulge as his face tightened around a protruding skeletal structure. I pulled him towards me desperately, and felt a resounding tug from his other side.

            "Let him go, Harry. We'll let you leave, but not him—his time has come." Not Lupin's voice, for he had yelled with surprise just as I had—the gruff, low voice belonged to Sirius. I could see his pale, ethereal form, a hand on Pettigrew's wasted wrist, making him squirm and whimper all the louder. My Godfather, grinning sadly at me, shaggy black hair in his light eyes. Lupin's arms shook, and one extended to coax me into releasing my death grip.

            "Padfoot…" he whispered, then visually shook himself. "Harry, listen to him, let go, or you'll die too…" were his words in my ear, half-choked, though I knew his eyes had fixed on Sirius—and his two companions, who took the place of those terrible hands, luring Pettigrew away from me.

            My mother's beautiful, regal face came into view, eyes sad as they looked into mine, sparkling with tears; and my father next to her with Sirius on his other side, strong, proud, with gentile shoulders and head high, and it was his eyes that told me, without a word, to let go. I'd have sold my soul not to. I'd have given anything, everything, the world, to run to him and drink him in, lean against him and my mother and Godfather, drown in their essence, hear their breathing, and the rhythm of their hearts, and never feel or think or weep again. Only my father's eyes told me I could not, that the breathing would not be there, that the heartbeats had stopped to all living ears, and only continued so long as mine beat in rhythm, their Immortality. I let my hand slip from Pettigrew, felt the breath of life leave him in one shuddering gasp, leaving him to the hands of justice, more coming from the walls, those sickly flowers, which bore him, screaming and pleading without words or sentience, away. 

_It never was and never will be,_

_You're not real and you can't save me_

_And somehow now you're everybody's fool—_

_Owooooooohooohooo…_

My heart still slowed, and the sound of it filled the corridor. I fell against Lupin's chest, whose eyes were on the three fading figures before us.

            "James," I felt him croak, both guilty and forgiving. My father's eyes reflected the same.

            "Take care of him, Moony. He needs you," he said, before fading into the shadows, taking my mother, eyes still sparkling with tears, wrapped in his arms into eternity. Sirius lingered on for a moment and our gazes met. Anger, sadness, memory, truth, and soul-saving forgiveness found each other there and tears coursed down my cheeks unbidden. Sirius gave us a last rakish smile before fading into the same eternity as my parents, leaving behind a long dark corridor filled with comforting whispers and undefined shadows. Lupin's grip suddenly tightened, and I felt the veil around me, light and air and sky and warmth and crackling electricity as we fell backwards together onto the dais, leaving the ragged fabric sighing once more as it fell back into place. I looked into Lupin's face, unsure what to say. He was crying—and so was I.

            Dumbledore stood across the room, directing a few Aurors up the tiers with some of the Death Eaters, all gagged and bound, in tow. Voldemort and many others had fled, including, to my chagrin, Bellatrix Lestrange; the room was now filled with Aurors, officials, and, sprinkled throughout, quite a few Order members, one being Mrs. Weasley. She pounced on us not two seconds after our return to the land of the living, like an over-protective tigress, and practically crushed me with relief.

            "There you two are, oh, we were so scared for you, no one was sure if Remus could bring you back through—you look terrible, so pale, we'll get you some soup in a skip, poor boy—how could you let him be here, even on a small mission, Remus, you knew the Dark Lord would be interested in that file, you should have let someone take him back to Headquarters—oh here, dear, there, there…" She softened and handed Lupin a handkerchief, only then noticing his tears, which he was trying very hard to keep under control. I realized then that he had not yet let me go, through all of Mrs. Weasley's fussing. I actually appreciated the woman's simplicity—as though the tears he shed could be cured by a hanky, as though the cold I felt could be remedied with soup, as though all things have a simple resolution and explanation. I used to think such things; now I know they cannot be true. I was dead for a brief moment; I still cried. And yet I still long to be a werewolf—why, you may ask?

            I'm selfish. I want to run wild and savage, where I and I alone can know Lupin the way my father and Sirius did, know why they seemed so beyond death, so invincible. We young are always invincible.

            Excitement over, fussing done, we were left in our incubator, our sanctuary of ghosts and memories, which will soon be replaced by another, as I've heard. But my hands have gotten a bit tired—I think Lupin would be honored to tell you that bit of our tale. So I'll leave you here, dear friend, in the light of the fire for another night, and finish with the moment the door of twelve Grimmauld Place closed behind us.

            Lupin turned to me, eyes speaking of tears that could not be shed, years that could not be lived or reclaimed, desire to move forward and desire to stay in the past, where both angels and demons lurked—just around the corner. He was, unspeakable, undoubtedly, unearthly beautiful—Remus Lupin, the wolf. I know I wasn't dreaming, this time, as he kissed me.

_And somehow now you're everybody's fool—_

_Owooohooohooo,_

_    hoohoohoooooooo…_

Fin    


End file.
